Living off the state has become way of life in welfare utopia

I FULLY agree with columnist Andrew Vine as regards TV’s Benefit Street (Yorkshire Post, January 28). It is quite obvious that Channel 4 has erred by emphasising extremes with its choice of characters, but Andrew is quite right in that a fair number of those on benefits take everything for granted and have no intention of finding work as the state gives them everything they need.

This fact was brought home to me some years back when I worked for an estate agent in the Midlands as a viewer (showing people round properties) and a rather large woman and her large female companion were interested in a bungalow.

I gathered from them that they were classed as semi-disabled through their inability to work due to being so large. Admittedly there was nothing I could see that would stop them getting a desk job, nevertheless they followed me round the property which admittedly needed only mild modernisation.

As we viewed the property they grumbled and found fault with everything and the phrase “Oh, the social will pay for that” became the norm. Reaching the bathroom, which needed a shower to make it complete, I was informed that “No sweat, the social will pay for all of that...”

Further questioning revealed that they already owned a bungalow that had just had about £15,000 spent on it by the local council to adapt it to suit their disability. When asked why they wanted to move I was told it was because they didn’t like the street. It was full of scroungers.

To those in Benefit Street and those like them, living off the state is a way of life, just as many poorly educated girls feel that getting pregnant saves then having to go to work – after all, these days everything is supplied free.

Is it any wonder that we have half the world trying to gain access to our shores – this country must seem like utopia!

From: Jackie Dusi, Mastall Lane, Arksey, Doncaster.

ON reading your story (Yorkshire Post, January 27) about prisoners being given work on the dustbins near to their release dates, I ask the question: there are millions on the dole, all sitting at home collecting their benefits. What’s up with getting folk on the dole to work on the dustbins, clean litter off the streets, clear derelict sites and clean out the drains etc?

Let them earn their benefits and serve a useful purpose to the community.

From: Max Nottingham, St Faith’s Street, Lincoln.

PHONE-IN supremo Victoria Derbyshire had an item on the super rich versus the poor the other day.

There was no politician on her panel. And three out of four panellists seemed to be batting for the rich.

The BBC preach balance, but this one may have slipped through the net. One could say it was “a bit rich”. A broadcaster once said to me: “The rich have lawyers; and the poor don’t.”

True enough, but the poor do deserve a fairer deal than they get currently.

From: Javed Bobat, Associate Director, Marks Sattin Yorkshire, Park Row, Leeds.

THE Cities Outlook 2014 shows the need for Yorkshire to do more to attract and keep young professionals. The key is in persuading students who have studied here and loved our cities, as well as those that have grown up locally, that the region can offer something different and more attractive than the capital.

The good news is we have an excellent head start; Wwe have world class universities across the region attracting the brightest young people, a growing jobs market – particularly an increase in financial services roles of 44,000 since 2007 and an attractive lifestyle.

We’re seeing more and more professionals enticed into the region to look for work as a result of increasingly competitive pay. While our research also found finance professionals in Yorkshire have greater work life balance than those in London.

From: Tom Howley, Wetherby.

MY first job, as a school-leaver in 1949, was as a proof readers’ assistant at the Yorkshire Evening Post. Proud of my new status, I was determined to create a good impression and was pleased to spot what I thought was an important error in editorial copy.

Excitedly I announced that a news item referred to a top rate of tax of 19s.6d in the pound (97.5 pence) and that this obviously was a mistake. The head reader laid a friendly hand on my shoulder and said: “No, it is correct and and I hope that you one day will be paying that level of tax, you will be rich beyond imagination.”

David Cameron, replying to Prime Minister’s Questions, taunted Ed Miliband about Labour’s statement that if returned to government the 50p band rate would be reintroduced, whilst resolutely refusing to confirm that the Tories would not reduce the top rate to 40p.

A clear indication that if re-elected Cameron would continue to look after his privileged friends and wealthy supporters.