BENEFITS BONANZA - says The Times. To the letters editor of The Times. Dear letters editor. You have been publishing letters from me since at least 1975 all of which have tried to take the side of impoverished people, people exploited by large organisations or people hit by unjust laws. This morning is the first lime that your heading to a letter of mine “BENEFITS BONANZA”, in both the newspaper and the on line editions, has directly contradicted the point I am trying to make. Bonanza means a source of great and sudden wealth or luck; a spectacular windfall. Where has The Times been since May 2010 when the caps, cuts and council tax were designed to hit the incomes of your poorest fellow citizens very hard indeed and are forcing many benefit claimants into unmanageable debt? Only the on line edition helpfully adds to your headline “With the reintroduction of the taxation of benefits by local councils, many people on benefits will be in dire poverty”. Even so your sub-editing of my letter, which in the past has normally improved them, substantially weakens my description of the dire poverty into which people are being forced by the present government. I am showing below your edition of my letter. BENEFITS BONANZA Sir, I am never entirely clear what Iain Duncan Smith’s promise means when he says that Universal Credit will ensure people are better off in work than on benefits (report, Sept 6). His department reported last year that benefits are claimed by 6.1 million people in work and by 5.1 million who are unemployed. His promise needs further study. The link has been broken between statutory minimum incomes and the escalating prices; with the reintroduction of the taxation of benefits by local councils, that ensures that many people on benefits will be in dire poverty, and unmanageable debt, whether in work or unemployment on the Universal Credit. The Rev Paul Nicolson (Taxpayers Against Poverty) London N17
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 13:50:54 +0000
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