[Margaret Pilkington]

Having read the article, I now see where you took the analogy about the NHS from....although I think you may have altered it a little to fit the purpose of your point.
I mentioned a few posts back that much of the benefit for the claimants in the city would be to private Landlords........ and this would be easily reined in. The Landlords get exorbitant rents because they know that it is not politically sound to have people homeless...so benefits agencies pay up.
I am pretty sure that if the benefits agencies let it be known to the landlords that they were no longer going to fund these exorbitant rents, something would be done about it.
I am sure that Landlords prefer to have a smaller, but regular income, than have properties lying unoccupied and at risk of occupation by Moldovan /Roumanian squatters.

I have a friend (an ex colleague) who is a health visitor in Rochdale....the estate where most of her caseload is based, is one where those employed are in a minority.
The rest of the estate claim benefits to live. She tells me that they all have state of the art TV's.....mobile phones etc.
Yes......you are going to tell me that perhaps these are not paid for, or perhaps thay they were paid for before the household began to draw benefits...that might be the case, but she also tells me that some of these families have never ever been employed....and it galls her because she has trained and worked hard to get much less of a salary....and cannot afford the things that these people on benefits have.

So I guess it is down to your experience and contact with some of these claimants.

And you didn't answer my questions.