What's the difference between a scrounger and a benefit cheat?

I ask this question because the other day (Thursday 12 August) the Sun ran a "campaign" to get members of, what they usually term, the Great British Public to grass-up people who they suspected of falsely claiming benefit. Now I don't know if this is an example of the silly-season that traditionally runs in the British press at this time of the year but knowing the Sun as I do (a notoriously hate-filled rag) I suspect not.

There was a follow-up piece that evening on Newsnight. Now, I would hazard a guess that most of us would regard Newsnight as perhaps a more reliable source of journalistic information than the Sun. It must be said, I do quite like their football coverage and I understand their racing coverage is excellent - I couldn't really comment as I know next-to-nothing about the gee-gees.

So let's return to Newsnight. There is £5.2 billion wrongly paid out in benefit. Of that amount £1.5 billion is attributed to fraud. Now I can quite credit that £3.7 billion is wrongly paid out in benefit by the DWP. I think we all know they couldn't organize a proverbial piss-up....One of the more startling figures that was brought up that evening was the fact that there are £16 billion of benefits that go unclaimed! We've all heard about the little old lady who doesn't know what she's entitled to claim for and people who are too proud to ask for Government hand-outs, but £16 billion?

The Con-Dem coalition government (or whatever they are called, I never quite know how to refer to them) glibly claim, at every available opportunity, that what they are trying to do is sort out the appalling financial mess Labour left behind. Now I have no party-political axe to grind here, nor am I an economist in my spare time, but I was under the impression that the responsibility for this world-wide financial crisis lay, by and large, with the bankers. That is to say the roots of this recession lay in the shady dealings of the financial sector. In what Nick Clegg called in his article at the weekend (15 August-Observer) "reckless irresponsibility". You have to read deep into his Observer article to see his acknowledgement of this, get him on the telly and it's all Labour's fault. All over the planet an unfettered financial services industry have landed us all in an almighty mess, world-wide.

So how come, in order to rectify the situation, we start off by kicking the poor and then go on to slash services that huge numbers of the general public need and use? Mr Clegg put in the Observer: "this government doesn't expect anyone to reach their verdict after 100 days. We expect to be judged on what we have achieved in five years. That should be a relief." Well, all I can say is that after 100 days this government has scared the living daylights out of many, and that hardly counts as relief.

We cannot know for certain where the axe will fall because we have to wait until 20 October for the results of George Osborne's considerations. There's been enough signposting for us to know that all manner of things are on the list and some things have already fallen by the wayside.

This government seems to be lining up traditional old Tory targets, for starters what they call big government and the arts and then there's the poor and benefit cheats and scroungers, none of whom can be held responsible for the current mess. All this is being done with the active collusion of the Liberal Democrats, who should be ashamed of themselves as the people being lined up for cuts are people they have traditionally stuck up for in the past. One sniff of government and the Liberal Democrats seem to forget their principles. So as I say the government seems quite happy to pick on the poor and the jobless. I've heard no mention of taxation apart from vague noises about a banking tax which seems a sop when you consider that by their own admission HM Revenue and Customs readily acknowledge that there is £40 billion tax that goes unpaid.

While all this is going on what is the Opposition up to? Well instead of building some kind of coherent opposition to these vicious cuts, the Labour Party have been all wrapped up in their internal bickering over who they are going to elect as their new leader.

Post-election musings

This is my take on the last six days, it's not definitive, just my impressions.

Election night
They shouldn't start these election programmes so early. They should put a couple of films on and start at 2am. Instead we get the problem of political journos queuing up to flounder about on the telly trying to make some kind of informed comment. They have such little information, that whatever phrases they manage to utter sound merely fatuous.

Waste of live TV. So-called heavyweight political journalists, all over-excited and twitchy, words tumbling from their mouths, desperately searching for something pertinent to say. They are entirely missing the point that most folk watching at home don't share their anticipation and are thinking: sod this I've got to get up in the morning.

Friday
Posturing on two sides, each making tempting proposals of what appears, to my eye, some kind of phony union. Being loved-up only seemed to last half the day. By the evening, as far as I could tell political pundits were thinking it too problematic to bring off. Financial pundits were talking of political fantasies with dire, ie more dire than widely held already, consequences. So what is to be done?

For Joe Public as an uninformed outsider looking on, witnessing these protracted negotiations unfold before our eyes is tortuous and tiresome. The political class seems to be as distanced from its electorate as ever.

Let's face it, we've been hearing for three weeks or more how this election was going to be so important, perhaps even change the face of British politics, yet 24 hours later who can safely suggest who's to be our next PM?

Saturday night update
70 minutes of one-to-one talks between two of the protagonists. So that must be alright then, sounds like the makings of a new government to me!

Then you've got all these other folk, who most of us have never heard of, sticking their oar in and it's startlingly obvious they're nobodies with an axe to grind who see their chance to get their face on the evening news for 20 seconds.

And every single one of them, from Cameron, Clegg and Brown downwards, without exception, fall over themselves to tell you that they're doing ALL of this for the good of the country. The thing that leaves a nasty taste in my mouth is that they, all of them, are just nowhere near being entirely honest with the British public, their electorate. We all realise it's a delicate situation but this disingenousness is repellent. It brings to mind the phrase "economical with the truth", most recently heard during the Thatcher years.

Three and a half days in

After we've had the numbers and we seem no nearer having a new government and I'm wondering what the rest of the world must think? They and we are used to rapid change after an election. In fact they probably aren't that concerned. To me it smacks of indecision and lack of leadership. The only noises I've heard today are bear with us and we'll get there. This is hardly sufficient given the pickle we're in. Perhaps we're so unfamiliar with it we don't know how to do coalition politics.

Gordon Brown speaks
I've been waiting four days for something to actually happen. Clearly I am not aware of the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to it, but then a dignified, honourable, principled and rather awkward man made a short statement outside number 10. To my mind, Gordon Brown ignited this whole election business, thank heavens.

For someone who has been around public life for so long he just never quite got the hang of it. For that he seems to be reviled by so many. Gordon Brown strikes me as a tragic figure. Somehow I can't see him greedily hoovering up the cash on the lecture circuit - don't get me wrong' I'm sure he won't go short. A man out of his time perhaps?

I realise none of this has much to do with unemployment but I feel you would all agree events since last Thursday have been on such a grand scale so I'm hoping you'll forgive me such a digression.

Now there seems a faint air of panic. Goodness knows why anyone would want to run this country, we're mired in debt, swingeing cuts are on the cards, this year or next. So any government is guaranteed to be as popular as a national outbreak of the pox.

As soon as the dust settles on this saga I assure you I shall return to the plight of the unemployed, I like to think there's plenty I've not even touched on.

As regards the election there has been plenty to make me chuckle. Too much to mention here but I'll make a special mention of Lord Mandleson popping up all over the place dispensing his brand of wisdom to all and sundry like some sinister pantomime dame - priceless.

Wednesday morning, another country
So here we are, New Politics so we are told. That clearly remains to be seen.

It's new in as much as all three parties need to seriously re-evaluate where they are now and how they are going to put themselves across to their voters and the folk whose votes they didn't get. Boy do they need to reassess!

Everyone has adjustments to make, us as well, and how it all pans out has no doubt got to be worth watching.