Two visitors send their regards

Maurice Chevalier writes

I really,really hope that you're writing this stuff independently of government or any of their private sector/press allies who have a vested interest in peddling this garbage. Then, when it's your turn to experience the viciousness of a policy and media campaign designed to pauperise already poor people - and then blame them for a global fraud perpetrated by a variety of super-rich gamblers, asset strippers and conmen - you'll realise how much thanks they'll give you for doing some of their dirty work for them. There are words for people like you but I don't think I'd be legally allowed to use them in this email.

Peter Humphrey contributes

Your blog is rather disingenuous, to say the least.

1) Personal tax fraud is half of all UK fraud, at £15.2 billion in 2010. Almost nothing is said or done about it.
2) £16 billion a year in benefit payments goes unclaimed.
3) Between 1997 and 2007 alone I paid at least £110,000 in direct taxes. Currently my benefits total £6300 a year. I have knowingly foregone at least £2000 in 3 years that I could have claimed (but was too confused, cf point 4).
4) Employment and Support Allowance assessments are a five minute check box exercise by a nurse - not exactly rigorous. In 2009 my Incapacity benefit was withdrawn on annual assessment, despite the fact I had been sectioned, and was detained in a mental hospital at the time. I was hardly available for full time work, as Job Seekers Allowance requires. I won my appeal. The whole exercise cost significantly more than the 6 x £30 a week temporarily taken from me, ie, the food on my table. I ate at the hospital (my leave conditions had been extended to allow me to live at home, but I had to return for daily medication).
5) As a leaseholder I am not eligible for Housing benefit, but I am liable for service charges. Fortunately I was able to settle my mortgage with my redundancy payment.
As a homeowner, I do not have the flexibility to move for work. My home is not in a sufficient state of repair to sub-let. I do not have the financial resources to fix that.
6) I am now signed as fit for part-time, low pressure work only. I do voluntary work to the value of at least half of my benefits (originally funded by my taxes). Benefit regulations limit the amount of voluntary work I can do. I am not a scrounger. In fact, the nation has done rather well out of me, and continues to do so.
7) I am middle aged, work is ever harder to come by, despite my education and experience. Not even B&Q offered me a job stacking shelves. Should my benefits be reduced, my meagre savings, and the remainder of my credit limit, would not last long. Do you suggest I turn to crime to pay my bills? How much would that cost the taxpayer? Or should I just default on my debts?
8) In however small a way, I am still economically active, and I still pay indirect taxes. Incidentally, some benefits are taxable, and those who receive enough of them pay direct tax.
9) Welfare payments, including the burgeoning cost of pensions, total £187 billion per year. The bail out of the banking sector cost £850 billion.
10) Your figure of £3.5 billion is rather dubious. Even if you are correct, your concern is disproportionate and simplistic.
11) Keynes and Beveridge were not stupid. Say's Law is garbage. The invisible hand of the market is a special case, it has narrow relevance. And, cf point 8, consider the Laffer curve.
12) Remember, "but for the grace of God there go I".

Will you post this, unedited and in full?

Yes