Gideon Osborne - Benefits Scrounger

Financial efficacy - Gideon knows

It is sickening to hear the parade of Government Ministers and their Media Masters in the rightwing gutter-rags parroting endlessly the lies about "benefits scroungers" - the impact of this on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society has been evident in so many ways. From vilification in the news to mental torture via ATOS reassessments and free-to-Tescos workfare programmes, through to a marked rise in violent attacks on disabled people, the Con Dems have wildly exaggerated the level of fraud in the benefits system from the Government's own assessment of 0.7% of total spend to a point where a recent survey showed that on average people think the correct figure is a massive 27%.

Bad enough, but worse follows. Although he has decided to more than double the amount of fees having to be incurred by people before the state will pay for their old age care (from the £35,000 proposed by the Dilnot report to £75,000), Chancellor George Osborne has a bit of form on encouraging those with access to accountants and financial advisers to get free state paid care while avoiding paying their tax. In the video below, he popped up on the BBC to reassure the better off that they don't have to sell off their parents homes to pay for their care. Not at all - here he is on Andrew Neil's show explaining how they can avoid this legally with the help of some "clever financial products". This way they can avoid inheritance tax and get personal care paid for by the state.

So here we have our austerity-fetishist, service-cutting Chancellor helping the rich to get free social care which they are not intended to obtain free: now, isn't that benefits scrounging if ever? Or tax avoidance? Or both?

Oh, my apologies, taxes are only for the little people!