This government is STILL using every opportunity they get to take as much as they can from the poor and vulnerable. And every chance the government and anyone from the right gets, they kick the poor with more exaggerated and blown-up generalisations of benefits claimants. This despite a concerted effort from the left (and many centrists too) to point out the inaccuracies: that in-work benefits cost a lot more than out-of-work benefits and that state pension is the biggest outlay of all.
But the argument that seemingly is being lost completely is the unfairness of the government's targeting. The government continue to protect bankers' bonuses and defend the City like deluded guards of an evil dictator. Only they're not deluded; they're complicit.
The poorest are being made to pay for a crisis they did not create. Worse still, the 'recovery' is happening in a way that leaves them even further away from the sort of life most of us want and some of us can take for granted. Wages are not rising, while the cost of everything essential still is. Those with the least pay a far greater proportion of their income on housing, energy and food than those with greater incomes. On top of this, many of the industries who are growing are doing so on the backs of the poorest. It's boom-time for pay-day lenders and bookies with fixed-odds betting terminals.
'Benefits Street' is a disgrace. If you have no hope of work and society has rejected you, what do you do? You watch tv. You might drink, to forget how crap your life is. You might try your luck on gambling machines to try to increase your last few quid to something worth having. You might socialise in the streets because you can't afford to do it at the golf course, or a nice restaurant. Many people steer away from these potential pitfalls but their stories aren't so colourful. In fact, they're often more grey than most people could even imagine - I know, I've been there. The truth that a real 'Benefits Street' would be mostly pensioners, followed by a number of working people on low pay (often with big companies who can afford to pay more) and only a few unemployed people is lost on much of the public.
Why are there so many people on in-work benefits? Because underemployment is high and wages are very low whilst the cost of living is increasingly unaffordable. There are big profits to be made in the private sector (even if Tesco have just announced a drop in profits, they are still the biggest company in the UK) but they don't pay their staff enough to live on. Gone are the days when companies increased staff pay to increase loyalty and morale (often thought of as 'Fordism' when Ford employees became able to buy its cars). These days, they use threats to keep you working.
But again, the idea that the blame lies with bankers who gambled with our economy and go unpunished, and greedy profiteers exploiting workers with low pay, lack of job security and avoiding taxes (for example having two or three people to one job, which is good for the employer because more workers working less hours = less employer NI payments) will be lost on many.
How many of the ill-informed millions vote is hard to say. But you can be sure the government and the right-wing media will be spending a lot of time, money and effort to give voters this impression of lazy, anti-social, ignorant masses gobbling up your taxes for their leisure.
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