Another day, another benefit crackdown.
Today, the usual red top suspects are reporting that the Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered yet another crackdown, this time on EU migrant ‘benefit cheats.’ You might be forgiven for thinking the politicians and newspapers think we’re stupid. In fact, you’d be right because they do.
Benefit fraud crackdowns are a familiar headline under this government and, to be fair, under the previous Labour government. People hate cheats when they are working hard and see their own wages fall year upon year while scroungers (that’s the name for anyone on benefits, according to some) enjoy the life of Riley. And in times of austerity, it’s convenient to blame foreigners.
The reality is, of course, very different.
Under this government, it has become far more difficult to investigate benefit fraud. There is far more paperwork, there are far more restrictions, much more emphasis on easy hits, dramatically less surveillance, reduced training of staff and of course drastic cuts in staff numbers. They are moving to civil investigations because they are far cheaper than criminal ones. That is the reality of Cameron’s crackdown.
I love how they always say X amount is lost to benefit fraud every year but they have reduced it to another X amount. All made up figures because no one really knows how much fraud there is. My guess is that we were scratching at the service of major fraud whilst concentrating on the low level stuff so the minister can get up in parliament and say how many more people are being sanctioned.
The crackdown will also need to include the Borders Agency, who are suffering crippling cuts and Councils who are winding down their fraud teams altogether. And the big cases will involve the police who are seeing their numbers cut at the same time as bureaucracy balloons. It’s all a load of bollocks.
The other reality is this: there is no epidemic of EU migrant benefit fraud. There are no queues of shifty foreigners queueing up to sign on, especially with the stringent rules and sanctions that are in place these days. There are bound to be some, but hardly enough to justify being the lead story of the Daily Express.
It’s the politics of blame, it’s the politics of bigotry, it’s the politics of populism, it’s the politics of hate and it’s the politics of a government that has nothing useful to say on the matter. (It is also convenient that this ‘story’ should emerge on the day a massive increase in net immigration was announced.)
There’s no crackdown, there never has been. It’s a device for attracting right wing media interest and then raising anger amongst the vast majority who work for a living.
And it’s another aspect of the drip drip effect that is trying to persuade us that the welfare bill, the vast majority of which goes in pensions, must be cut.
It’s a nice try, Dave, and doubtless some will be taken in by it but the crackdown is nothing of the kind. My experience is that the more governments say, the less they actually do.
