No place for scroungers in the UK (unless they wear a suit and tie)

We really do hate scroungers in this country, don't we? Every day there is a new story about someone living on benefits, ripping off the nation, spending other people's money on booze, fags and designer clothes, whilst pleading poverty when brought before the courts fot not paying their bills. One such story in the news this week was that of the Nickells, a couple living on incapacity benefit, and fighting a council decision to refuse them housing benefit, after squandering £100,000 of scratchcard prize money. The hapless couple, who claimed they were unable to work because Mr Nickell has a frozen shoulder and Mrs Nickell is awaiting a hip replacement, told GMTV how they were knee deep in debt and could not pay for their own upkeep without additional benefits. The public response was predictable. GMTV viewers wrote in saying how the Nickells made their 'blood boil' and how the taxpayer should not be made to bail them out for being stupid. Even the photo of the couple on the GMTV website came with the caption 'scroungers'.

Of course it is not just the media who are keen to cash in on the public's resentment of benefit claimants. The government, keen not to miss the bandwagon, have made a big deal of talking tough on the unemployed with the proposal of 'fit notes' from doctors to cut down on the number of people claiming incapacity benefit and endless tv ad warnings of the latest crackdown on benefit fraud. One Conservative member of Medway council in Kent recently even insisted, whilst discussing the case of the mother of abducted Shannon Matthews, that the burden placed by unemployed parents on society was so great that the only solution was forced sterilisation. He later apologised, although it would have been interesting to hear how exactly the lifestyle of a mother of seven in West Yorkshire was breaking the backs of the 1.6m residents of Kent.

Now, I was just as gobsmacked as the next person by the Nickells' wrecklessness and I expect them to do everything possible to cover their own costs, such as selling off the car and caravan they bought with their prize money, before they turn to the council. But I was more astounded by the selectiveness of the moral outrage displayed by the public and the media. If its scroungers they want to lynch, they're looking at the wrong people. They should be focusing on the likes of Adam Applegarth, the former chief executive of Northern Rock, who is due to collect a £760,000 pay-off after running the bank into the ground and forcing the government to bail them out with £24bn of taxpayers money. They should be focusing on the high-flying executives who egregiously exploit loopholes in the tax system so that their cleaners end up paying more than them.

As for the government, rather than wasting their revenues on adverts designed to intimidate the unemployed, how about they spend it on closing the loopholes that allow so many to escape paying any tax. In short, it is estimated that, whereas benefit fraud costs taxpayers £3bn a year, tax evasion costs £23bn a year. On top of that, time and again, we hear about public sector consultants, whether it's Bob Kiley the London transport chief or Stephen Carter, Gordon Brown's latest star signing, and their astronomical salaries, benefits and pay-offs all paid for by the tax-payer and all for doing...well not that much by the looks of it.

Then again, the scapegoating of the unemployed is only consistent with the trend in Britain today to put spin over substance and unfortunately people like the Nickells are not as well versed in manipulating the media to defend themselves as the smartly-clad, clean shaven city slickers.