Make benefit claimants drive the food lorries

This, I believe, was a genuine exchange on the Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5 this morning during a ‘debate’ on the Brexit-induced shortage of lorry drivers:

Kath from West Yorkshire: There’s an awful lot of people claiming benefits, make those drive the food lorries!

Trisha Goddard: “That’s another good point.”

I confess to not knowing who Trish Goddard is, but thanks to Mr Google I learn she is a TV presenter and that she appears to be standing in for Vine, presumably due to being on holiday. Having read Kath from West Yorkshire’s suggestion, and indeed Ms Goddard’s brainless response, I am rather glad I don’t watch daytime TV. If this is typical of the content of the show, it’s stupidity on stilts. But it’s stupidity that represents a view among many people that everyone who is on benefits is somehow an idler. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I can claim some level of expertise on the subject, having worked for the DWP for nearly 40 years, much of it customer facing on the frontline. And it is true to say that some claimants receive what are, on the face of it, high rates of benefit. Almost entirely, these claimants are disabled and claim disability benefits. Kath from West Yorkshire may think it’s a very good idea to compel disabled people to drive the food lorries and Ms Goddard may say “that’s another good point” and it is for someone whose brain has fallen out.

Benefit claimants come under many categories and headings and, if they are unemployed, they are paid a mere pittance and in order to claim that pittance they must actively prove they are “actively seeking work” or they will get nothing. I am not sure how Jobcentre staff can make claimants drive the food lorries – probably not the alcoholics and drug addicts, anyway – but if Kath from West Yorkshire can show us the way, maybe we should appoint her to run the DWP. She can’t do a worse job than the Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey MP, who I am told literally arrives for work in a clown car.

In my experience, the only benefit claimants who do very well out of the system are fraudsters, the bogus lone parents, those who pretend to be disabled and the like. I am not entirely sure that these are necessarily the kind of people haulage companies would prefer to employ but what do I know? “That’s another good point,” says TV presenter Trish Goddard.

One of the largest groups of claimants are pensioners who claim pension credit, which is really a benefit. Maybe that’s the group of people Kath from West Yorkshire is thinking about. If their state pensions aren’t enough, “make those drive the food lorries”. It may not play well with the grey vote, but hey, we need the food lorries, don’t we? And “there’s an awful lot of people claiming benefits”. With the Chancer of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak about to break yet another election promise by ending the triple-lock which is in place to make sure pensioners vote Tory, I’m sure the extra cash would come in handy.