By Isle of Wight Observer
I used to be resentful of those who chose not to work. That resentment largely diminished when I asked myself one simple question: would I really want to swap places and live on the breadline? When you live by the 6am alarm, a life on benefits might seem attractive, but it wouldn’t work for me. I’m proud to have worked all my life. I kept a roof over our heads and fed and clothed my children, who now have a similar work ethic.
That said, I have genuine sympathy for anyone with small children who lives with the insecurity of renting. It’s not uncommon for children in that situation to have to change school when a tenancy is terminated. My own motivation to work, sometimes seven days a week, was certainly to keep my family in a safe, secure home, but I often suffered financial anxiety and survived various crises; it wasn’t easy. We often got behind with the bills and occasionally relied on credit cards. I grew up broke and don’t look back on it with any fondness.
So, why did Britain’s welfare spending get so out of control? Under backbench pressure, Labour’s leadership recently bottled the plan to reduce it. A good friend of mine has three school-age children and works full-time. He has a weekend side hustle. His wife works shifts and does lots of overtime. Still, there’s no spare cash for luxuries; they can’t afford new carpets or furniture. Some weeks ago, he told me about his wife’s sister, an unemployed single mum with three kids. Since the government blew an extra £3 billion on scrapping the two-child benefit cap, both families’ monthly incomes are virtually identical. What kind of mad system gives a benefit-dependent family the same income as a working couple, or even more? Britain’s benefits bill now exceeds the total sum raised from income tax, and my pal’s resentment is off the scale. I suspect many working people feel the same way.
“Why do we bother?” they ask themselves.
Some months ago, my pal told me that his indolent sister-in-law took her kids to visit a mainland theme park at virtually zero cost. At the time, I took this with a pinch of salt. I honestly didn’t really believe him until this week, when it became national news. My pal had visited the Tower of London. The admission cost for a family of four was a whopping £254.80, plus travel. (I checked their website to confirm it.)
His sister-in-law went there, but the cost to her and her family was £4. She could also take them to Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace, and London Zoo – all for £1 each. The same goes for the RHS gardens at Wisley and many others. The Eden Project makes adult Universal Credit (UC) claimants pay a fiver, and the kids pay £1. To you and me, it’s £35. I repeat, I don’t resent anyone with children living on UC; I’m sure it’s a challenge. But surely UC should be for the bare necessities, not luxuries?
Around a third of the 8.4 million people claiming UC do work. Thanks to the Tories inviting millions of people to come and live here, over 1.3 million UC claimants were born overseas. Would you really expect to move abroad and live on your host nation’s welfare?
Britain’s rampant UC bill was a staggering £88 billion in 2024/’25. By ’29/’30 it’ll be £100 billion. Incredibly, there were 63,000 new claimants last month alone! We can’t possibly sustain such astronomical sums while slashing the amount spent on defence.
The idiots running this country have no plan to reduce the crippling welfare bill; we may have to wait for a new government to do that. Let’s pray our enemies give us that time.