Benefit Scroungers Cost Millions.

As part of his campaign to raise his own personal prejudice against the unemployed to the level of a political philosophy, Ian Duncan Smith wants a legal ban on them spending their money on such things as booze and fags. This, of course, makes the assumption that the unemployed, many of them thrown out of work by the Tories themselves, are all feckless scroungers whose selfishness knows no bounds. It also assumes that, as a group, the unemployed are different and simply don't deserve the freedom of choice that the rest of the population enjoy. "“There are people who are using benefits to fund a habit and children are going hungry," IDS slyly suggests in a blatant attempt to shift the blame for starving children in this country from himself to the victims of his vile policies. His bigotry is brought into sharper focus when the privileges that he and his fellow MP's get are taken into consideration. While the unemployed are being faced with a choice between a packet of cigarettes or a tin of beans, MP's are faced with a choice between a risotto of pea and broad bean with Golden Cross goat’s cheese or a roasted half spring chicken with stuffing for less than £3.00, while their cigarettes, cigars and booze can be bought without the taxes that the rest of us have to pay. Why? Because such items are subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of a cool £5.8 million per year. That is nearly £10,000 a year for each and every MP - in addition to their basic salary of £65,738 - £175 per week, or three times what a single unemployed man or woman get in benefits to pay for everything. When it comes to scrounging IDS and his mates leave the unemployed in their dust.