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   Tom Austin wrote:

  At last, a view from the Left...
  
  "10 lies we're told about welfare
  
  'Has someone made Jim Royle a policy adviser? Millions are being made poorer while we're fobbed off with porkies'
  
  1. Benefits are too generous
  
  Really? Could you live on £53 a week as Iain Duncan Smith is claiming he could if he had to? Then imagine handing back 14% of this because the government deems you have a "spare room". Could you find the money to pay towards council tax and still afford to eat at the end of the week?
  
  2. Benefits are going up
  
  They're not. A 1% "uprating" cap is really a cut. Inflation is at least 2.7% . Essentials like food, fuel and transport are all up by at least that, in many cases far more. Benefits are quickly falling behind the cost of living.
  
  3. Jobs are out there, if people look
  
  Where? Unemployment rose last month and is at 2.5 million, with one million youngsters out of work. When Costa Coffee advertised eight jobs, 1,701 applied.
  
  4. The bedroom tax won't hit army families or foster carers
  
  Yes it will. Perhaps most cruel of all, the tax will not apply to foster families who look after one kid. If you foster siblings, then tough. But these kids are often the hardest to place. Thanks to George Osborne and IDS, their chances just got worse. And even if your son or daughter is in barracks in Afghanistan, then don't expect peace of mind as the government still has to come clean on plans for their bedroom.
  
  5. Social tenants can downsize
  
  Really, where? Councils sold their properties - and Osborne wants them to sell what's left. Housing associations built for families. In Hull, there are 5,500 people told to chase 70 one-bedroom properties.
  
  6. Housing benefit is the problem
  
  In fact it's rental costs. Private rents shot up by an average of £300 last year. No wonder 5 million people need housing benefits, but they don't keep a penny. It all goes to landlords.
  
  7. Claimants are pulling a fast one
  
  No. Less than 1% of the welfare budget is lost to fraud. But tax avoidance and evasion is estimated to run to £120bn.
  
  8. It's those teenage single mums
  
  An easy target. Yet only 2% of single mums are teenagers. And most single mums, at least 59%, work.
  
  9. We're doing this for the next generation
  
  No you're not. The government's admitted at least 200,000 more children will be pushed deeper into poverty because of the welfare changes.
  
  10. Welfare reforms are just about benefit cuts
  
  Wrong. The attack on our welfare state is hitting a whole range of services - privatising the NHS, winding up legal aid for people in debt and closing SureStart centres and libraries. All this will make life poorer for every community.
  
  Some call these myths. I call them lies. We are being told lies about who caused this crisis and lied to about the best way out of it. But I know one thing to be true: this government's polices will make millions of people poorer and more afraid. To do that when you do not have to, when there are other options, is obscene. That's why I'm backing union Unite's OurWelfareWorks campaign in its efforts to help highlight the truth about our welfare state."
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/02/ten-lies-told-about-welfare

  
  
  Yes - a typical view from the absurd left and it is as daft as we can expect.
  
  1/ No-one serious is suggesting anyone can live on £53 per week. This is simply totally untrue. The person who made this challenge, a self confessed ducker and diver, is not himself living on £53 per week and has been exposed for what he is.
  2/ 1% is a cash terms increase. Many people in work have actually taken a cash terms reduction in income to help save their jobs and many, including to be fair public sector workers, have seen a cash terms pay freeze. So with inflation those in benefits are relatively better off.
  3/ A small one month increase in unemployment does not counter the longer term reduction in unemployment and certainly does not counter the fact that record number are in work. That said I have been saying for a long term that the government has not done enough with supply side reforms to dtrengthen the jobs market and boost growth.
  4/ Again, it is not a tax. It is a limit on benefit and quite right too.
  5/ Here is a good point. Downsizing should be facilitated more.
  6/ Where on earth did he get his figures. They do not stack up.
  7/ Very dubious figures and absurd to equate then to avoidance and evasion. I avoid tax as does everyone who has an ISA or pension among other quite legal and reasonable measures, indeed I have argued that it is a public duty to make sure you do not pay higher tax than you legally should. Evasion is not excusable and that is already illegal. Two wrongs does not make a right and there are plenty of fraudsters making a life on benefits and these do taint the deserving and deprive them of help. A better comparison though would be with those who do not make valid benefit claims because the system is/was too complex.
  8/ Absurd and desperate stuff.
  9/ Absurd and desperate again. A life on benefits is not a way out of poverty, work does that. Our benefit system remains out of control and it is in the interests of the genuine claimants to get it under control.
  10/ More desperate stuff. Utter nonsense. Our bloated public spending is wrecking the economy and it is in all our interests for it to be brought under control to get a healthy economy that can afford to help those who really deserve it and pay for decent public services. Blame the fools who let public spending rip in the first place.
  
  The left are full of lies and a lot of smelly stuff too.

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