UK Benefit Fraud of up to £40K is OK

Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith (Con), the current political boss of UK Social Security in charge of the whole Department for Work & Pensions budget and policies, implies that benefit fraud up to £40,000 is acceptable if you can show you're "a thoroughly decent person" who's "very straight and very fair".

His political colleague David Laws (LibDem) was recently found defrauding public funds by wrongly claiming and accepting £40,000. But Mr Smith, the Secretary of State in charge of public funds for State Benefits, said that being caught is merely "a personal tragedy".
After admitting his theft from public funds Mr Laws remains an MP currently earning from public funds an annual salary of £65,738 (plus any expenses he can get away with), but he resigned from his higher paid job as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

So, if you've been caught working and earning a wage while claiming benefits from Social Security that you weren't entitled to, you should simply resign from your job and it's all OK because it's simply "a personal tragedy".

Mr David Laws currently remains an MP and is allowed to vote on what becomes new law - ie legislation that the people of the UK are expected to honour and obey because they are passed by honourable, sensible and decent, law-abiding representatives of the voting public.

Or is it one set of rules for "them" and a different set of rules for "us"?

NB This clip is courtesy of "The Andrew Marr Show" BBC 30 May 2010

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• government
• fraud
• politics
• MP
• LibDem
• Tory
• social security
• social
• theft
• Conservative
• law
• Laws
• David Laws
• IDS
• Iain Duncan Smith
• Ian
• Iain
• Andrew Marr
• work
• pensions
• benefits

[Scampirat]

Iain Duncan Smith makes my flesh crawl!

[rob8urcakes]

@Scampirat - Aye, just like Leon Brittain (remember him?), they both strike me as having the typical personality and facial features of a child molester. Weird that.

[TheKenfig]

Fuckin' typical hypocritical Catholic. £70 BILLION in tax fraud by big companies NOT RECOVERED and the Tories pick on small potatoes to make examples of desperate poverty stricken people with no opportunities struggling to eat and keep warm. Also Duncan - Smith is a fraud. If anyone doesn't believe me, look it up ; gave his wife a FAKE high paid job that the press exposed as bogus, even when she was a millionaire !. And lied about his qualifications and where he studied on his C.V. ; ALL TRUE

[kempandrew89]

This guy is a total fake and a fraud. This government is a disgrace, I wonder if he is going to take a pay cut himself? Didn't think so...

[Invesigator]

It is peculiar that westerners always invoke Christianity when most people know that the Western world is by and large atheist. Undermining the interests and welfare of the poorest, which the unemployed are, goes against every religious principle anyway.

[sweetypie000]

Nobody gets as much as people like Lain Duncan Smith

[sweetypie000]

the legal and illegal immigrants have to live on something :)

[JustB3NJI]

Poor and idle? Makes me fucking sick that we've got 30 seconds to moan about every other cheat in this country but the rest of the day to moan about the poorest in society getting a bit extra. It's a vile mentality we have in this country that we look down on people worse off than us and want to take away what little they have.

[TheKenfig]

@MUDSHARK111 Damn right Mud, he is obssesed with his own 'workshy' propaganda whilst simultaneously being involved in issues of dubious personal 'claims' for himself and his wife if I remember rightly

[TheKenfig]

@rob8urcakes Did you know he is part Japanese ? ; no joke