Osborne admits further welfare spending cuts are likely

£100k in housing allowances? That's not far short of £2k a week! Why the hell should anyone be entitled to that?

Just what a Labour MP would say. No where near the piont of what the situation is, but what can I get out of it.

Somebody will pay some where - the old labour guard is still around.

Bit like Napoleans Imperial Guard. They had to be totally destroyed to get the message

It is not the 6 months entitlement to JSA that is the issue, it is the years of massaging UB40 figures by Liebour via the shifting of long term UB40 onto Incapacity benefit that is the issue. As well as the unacceptable level of housing benefit claims that can be made.

Add to that the years of dependancy culture created by Liebour to boost likely voters and the thought that benefit depedancy is now a lifestyle choice deemd acceptable by many and it is easy to see why welfare spending is so unacceptably high.

It also goes to show the idiocy of the Liebour ideology that they deem it acceptable to expect tax payers to fund lifestyle of those who choose not to work. Tax the rich to pay for the idle, then tax anyone who is working to pay for the idle. The UK is being sucked down into the morass of cultural breakdown and still they chant the same failed mantra that has proven worthless each and every time Liebour manage to secure office via the forgetfullness of the electorate.

Every generation seems to need to experience first hand the destruction that the left wing ideology has on the country only then to think; never again. But then along come another generation of new voters and student union types and offspirng of the benefit seekers and choose to elect these muppets again.

History doomed to repate itself: Callaghan, Wilson, Atlee, McDonald same old same old.

Liebour are better in opposition and thats where they should stay. As for the problem at hand; well the full medical screening of incapacity benefit reicpients is a good start and the gradual erosion of monthly benefits over 6 months for those taking the mick would make serious inroads.

Trouble is we then need the jobs for these people to go into which appears unlikely in the short term, but allowing the Status Quo and disincentivising work through the benefit system cannot continue imo.

How could anybody on allowances afford to keep a £2k'ish place going?

However forgot they would also get, free council tax, free this, free that......where do you sign up?

Yes and get this MJC:

My fiance has been looking for work in between jobs for 12 months to no avail. She is thus suported by me alone as i refuse to have JSA monies paid into the household. She thought that maybe a college course may help with the skills and especially as the number of economically inactive people per jobs is increasing.

However, she could do this provided she pays full college course fees. Now i have no problems with paying for education, but what sticks in my throat is that if she was claiming JSA it would be free!

So, there is an incentive for her to now go and sign on to get free education - where is the logic. She would, as you rightly say, also get free presciptions and god knows what else although she would be deined most things as she would be means tested against my income as an unmarried cohabitee; but still.

The entire benefit system is backwards.

Suffice to say she wont claim JSA to avoid education fees as we both have the same views and me as mr muggins the taxpayer will fund the course so that the workshy can carry on regardless getting their 'education' free at my expense.

I have just come back from a weekend in London, and spent a little while wandering around Chelsea on a guided walk. I was informed Chelsea is the 4th/5ht most expensive borough in London for housing, and yet when I had a quick peek in the Estate Agents window, you could still get a pretty big apartment / small house for £2k a week in rent...so just where are these people who are getting £100k a year in HB living? Obviously not Tower Hamlets or some other deprived borough, that's for sure!

Anonymous 1 you should take what you are entitled to. It is not a benefit it is as it says on the tin 'job seekers allowance' Everyone pays national insurance for such situations. However it is the lunacy of the labout government that has put us in a situation where ridiculous amounts of money are paid in benefits and everyone believes the state will take care of them.

People should get what they are entitled to and the state should be there as a safety net and nothing more. This hopefully would then encourage everyone regardless of health or education to try and get a job.

How can reasonable decent housing for a family, even an extended family including four grandparents, cost £2,000 per week? lastminute.com will find you 4* hotel rooms (including one or two small children) for less than £50 per night. The YHA (OMG: No! - how could New Labour co-operate with the YHA which encourages individuality and personal responsibility?) provides clean safe decent accommodation for "young" people [the last I heard Canada's YHA had an age limit of 90 but the UK YHA did not].

If George Osborne claimed £2,000 per week for housing for his family nstead of moving into the small flat in Downing Street, dozens of Labour MPs would have (or pretend to have) heart attacks.

I take your point Bob but to take it would also mean getting embroiled within the tentacles of the State apparatus which is an anethema to us both. Perish the thought of filling in copious forms with all sorts of personal info andthen suffering the ignominity of the 'signing on experience'. No ta.

Neither of us agree with it in anycase and rthus i suppose we choose to go without. OK. But the point is that many not only do not choose to go without but actually beleive they are entitled to live for years on benefits.

JSA as a safety net for those that wish to avail themselves of it and genuine cases of incapacity and dla fine. But many benefits needs re-organising and in the majority of cases means testing even more - Child benefit, Winter fuel, Free bus pass and a whole host of family related benefits; people wanna have kids they should bloody pay for them and stop passing the responsibility of rasing their offspring onto the tax payer. Its their choice and their kids, not mine.

Getting like Frank Doberman now! I really hate welfare - unless of course you have to do community work in order to be eligible for it, that i could stomach.

The world, or rather the UK bit of it, has gone mad...5000 people getting £100k p.a. in housing benefit. Well done George for pointing that out; NOW DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.........................

Oh how ignorant most people are to the dark arts of PR; even when journalist start the article writing about the real issue!

I comment not on whether rent of 2k pm is reasonable because the circumstances that determine the rent are unknown to all of us, however, the conservative party hacks have picked on a statistic designed to inflame the sensibilities of even clever people such as CFPs and IFAs, and solicited them in their droves to help demonise everyone who claims benefits- yes everyone!

The real issue is that Osborne wants licence to slash benefits and by employing a few simply PR tricks he has secured the permission to make survival on the dole even more hellish even for all those City clerks who may be about to be made unemployed- yes, unemployment affects even our own kind