Welfare State being abused by the idle

YOU DON'T need to go far back in history to see what lay behind the creation of the Welfare State, indeed for some it is still within living memory.

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But quite what the architects who drew it up after the end of the Second World War would make of it now defies any description.

Figures were released last week that highlighted just how much money this bloated, poorly audited and easily abused system devours each year.

And in a series of numbers that beggared belief, one shone out: the number of claimants receiving Universal Credit has reached an astonishing EIGHT million.

That's double the size of the population of Los Angeles and not far short of that for the whole of Belgium.

This government was elected on a promise of “change” and in this area they pledged reform as Labour correctly identified growing public anger at the increasing number of people who were finding it easier to shirk than work. And yet in little over 12 months in office, the number has soared by an extra one million.