This post is in largely in answer to Rick's comment's yesterday and the day before (18:08:47 and 07:38:02) on the post Will the poor pay for Thanet budget deficit? It is not an attack but a considered answer to some held-to-be-true myths about poverty in Thanet. Some of this conversation might have taken place on rick's blog had he enabled OpenID authentication.

Background: The article "Will the poor pay for Thanet budget deficit?" addresses some facts released by Cllr David Green and adds information privately reported to me. The conclusion is that the Council Tax Benefit section may be working to hard to reduce costs by removing claimants by hook or by crook. In his first comment (18:08:47) Rick brings up the common myth that the poor are actually all cheats and goes on to expose us to the even more common myth that the poor are poor through their own fault. You may wish to read these first.

Reply: Rick, the question at hand is not how well or badly the private sector spends public money nor how deserving they are of that money. I have no doubt your own investigations have been as colorful as they have been shocking to you and I appreciate that you are driven by your own passion for justice.

That is a most admirable thing and something that the world may even need more of. However we are looking at the need of those the country as a whole chooses to demonise rather than address. We that have jobs may feel bad that there are those that do not work for their money. Mrs Gates does not work for her money - her husband Bill Gates is, through a series or luck breaks, one of the richest men in the world but, unless we are quite the "hard core" communist, we do not begrudge Mr and Mrs Gates their wealth.

We do not begrudge them because we would like to be like that but we are willing to accept blindly whatever tosh is spouted about those worse off than ourselves because we feel they should be like us.

Rick, you state that all people on benefits are lazy scroungers and then state that some people are deserving "baffled by the system" specifically. You attitude serves only to illustrate the problem with painting with broad brush stokes.

You cite a specific example and expect us to take it as read that this applies to all benefits claimants. If this logic were to hold all councillors are desperately wicked cheats who commit fraud on a daily basis and while many of us dislike our councillors you and I both know that only a minority break the law.

Similarly just under half the children in Newington estate have parents that claim benefits by your logic they are all claiming benefits when this is clearly not the case.

The national average is 21% which means that if the average background level of benefits "professionals" is high like you suggest then we should expect to see 15% to 20% per town being this group with the remainder being those whose luck has not been good. A figure of even 33% would be statistically significant at any reasonable confidence interval and indicate that different and additional causes exist that have resulted in the higher numbers (almost 50%).

When certain papers suggested that every one in Margate was a "work shy slacker" because they found a street with handful of apparent lazy souls every one cried out against the injustice - Margate, they said, was not populated with lazy useless people. Yet by your logic the papers were right. Take this further and everyone in Thanet including myself and you are worthless dole cheats.

As this is clearly not the case and I choose to believe that your suggestion comes not from rational thought but from the deeply ingrained cultural myths of our time. It is the only way that I can understand how an otherwise intelligent person could be so short sighted.

Tarring all groups with the same brush leads only to injustice and failure and you yourself said that we should not reward failure. This statement itself betrays a lack of deeper understanding of the issues at hand. Right now the likes of you and I work hard and pay taxes and so forth. We also pay national insurance.

In total those slices of out wages we hand over to the government are an insurance policy. In the event of some group of people with guns and bombs wanting to kill us all the government's spending on the army comes into play to stop them. Int he event that you fall down and break you legs those contributions pay for your time in hospital.

We pay this money because it provides a safety net. We hope that our employer is a good person but what if they are evil and take all the money and skip off to another country? That morning you have no job and with recession upon us the chances of finding another job when everyone you once worked with is also looking are quit slim. Yes, one or two might have contacts or you might have a rich uncle with a company that can find you a job but for the most part you now hope that the money you have been handing over can be used to stop you being homeless and hungry.

But, as you say, "we should not reward failure" so your best hope that if the world is ever as you have demanded that your boss is a nice man or you and your family are doomed. The alternative is called a work house and under such a scheme - one that your arguments are advocating you would now be a modern slave working hard for basic food and a bed in a dormitory while the house manager makes lot of cash from your work.

I fear that you investigations into the misdeeds you alleged against Ryder have prejudiced your opinion to the work carried out by good people under the banner of the names you despise. Worse still your emotional energy spent on this topic has made you biased against all foundations with little more than the truthiness of your feelings. Feelings on a topic do not equate to facts and as rational people the likes of you and I must stand back from our feelings to examine the facts with a cool head.

In today's declining work market the idea of pushing people out of work so that weaker personnel can have the job will bring only chaos. In a job that is driving a keyboard physical ability has nothing to do with it - only the skill at driving that keyboard. I know of several disabled persons that would be highly insulted by your suggestions (which incidentally can not be implemented under the laws that currently stop an employer refusing to employ on the grounds of gender or race or looks etc).

By reserving jobs for groups of people with a specific race, creed, sexual preference, religion, gender, ethnic background or ability level would be counter to every idea of justice ever. Likewise to crap on a people group because they have come off badly in this world is just as vile and I am sure that a thinking person such as yourself would never willingly do that.

I will willingly accept that not all of the near 50% of families in Dane valley and Newington are of equal deserving for the help that they get nor the 21% or more else where in Thanet. This does not change the fact that deserving or not half the children in those areas and a third or so from else where might go without basics such as food or clothes because of a hole in the council budget.

It is not the duty of the council to single handedly solve the massive and complex issue of poverty. They are barely able to maintain the council an are not able to balance their own books so to ask them to do more is frankly asking far too much of them. The council simply is not skilled enough to address these questions at this time. In fact other councils point at ours and laugh!

To suggest dumping all of Thanet's benefit claimants from council benefits because "they should have a job" when nationally this has not been possible (and Thanet is not exactly rich in jobs) is identical as saying Thanet has criminals lets lockup everyone on the island. The world simply does not work that way. Any solution to benefit cheats must be sure to target only the cheat and not the needy.

Likewise any effort to solve the massive budget deficit in the councils finances must not offload the costs onto those least able to defend themselves.

Rick, you are driven by a passion for righting institutionalised injustices and here is a situation with the potential for large scale institutionalised injustice to a group of people with an unfairly attributed reputation on whom we can so easily blame society's ills in the exact same way that some Germans did prior to the second world war.

So to bring this full circle and ask the question again. In light of the fact that a lot of children will be hurt and a lot of innocent adults (that under different circumstances could as easily be you or me) could be unfairly burdened with the cost of poor administration in the spending of council tax income what can and should our response be.

Is it fair to allow the rules to be used to force those not sufficiently savvy with the system (by your standards the most deserving) to be shafted by the complexity and apparent illogic of red tape in order that middle management complete their targets of "finding savings"?

Rest assured that any cheats on the system, such as those you use in you illustration, will have all the resources and support they need to keep getting the benefits while those that need it most will be forced to find several hundred pounds - a number that will increase significantly once the council have dragged it though the magistrates court where the opinion of the court will be much like yours and the claimant heavily biased against tot he point of hopelessness.

Let me reiterate - it will be the ones deserving of those benefits that will pay the hardest in this as the "cheating" will be well able to cover the cost or avoid it altogether.

What this will do is simply reduce trust in the system in the hearts and mind of those people most needing the help and support of the system to get free of debt and poverty. All this will do is tighten the noose of the poverty trap and make it harder and more expensive to solve. It gives those with the power to change Thanet's political scene forever less incentive to vote and therefore will actually reinforce the political set up that you so strongly fight against.

30% of Thanet voted last time. But what if the poor of Thanet could be given hope rather than debts they can ill afford to pay? What if they could be inspired to join in - then the political stagnation that allows corrupt groups to leach money (and far more than all the benefits claimants put together) would be broken. Change would be the only option and with it a freshness of direction and maybe some better accountability.

Rick, you fight against groups that abuse the public purse and the individual costing that purse more than benefits alone can. If only you knew it the power for change is with the very people you have demonised. Find a way to give hope back to this people group and you will unlock a tide that can not be stopped as political types of every level suddenly find that rather than reliable voters the majority is now voting and stale platitudes to grab at the scarce middle ground will not cut it against the tide of real people with real opinions seeking real answers.

Yet currently we see the system set to destroy these people. These people that could be me or you.