George Tyndale - axe benefits for fatties

By George Tyndale on Apr 17, 09 05:07 PM

Alcoholics will be stripped of their benefits unless they accept help to kick the booze says Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell.

Presumably he'd had a few when he came up with this idea.

Of course, none of us are delighted to be supporting 50,000 drunks who are claiming Incapacity Benefit on the grounds that they are too inebriated to work.

But the only reason we are in this ludicrous and expensive position is because New Labour has allowed them to sign on for benefit in the first place.

This is part of the project which has diverted the idle and feckless to any form of benefit that was not marked "unemployment".

But in any case we know that "accepting help" means - simply agreeing to attend a weekly meeting paid for at our expense.

And who is going to decide when the claimant is "cured"? Any alcoholic will tell you they are one drink away from a collapse back into their old ways.

So if a handful of the 50,000 get dried out on Friday afternoon, how many will be back on Incapacity Benefit by Monday morning?

And if a state-sponsored alcoholic did decide against the drying out "help" then all they would have to do is turn up in another benefits queue claiming they had miraculously kicked the booze habit.

And what if they were "cured"? With the number of unemployed hurtling towards 3 million what are they going to do next?

Join the unemployed, naturally.

But in any case if Mr Purnell wants to take action against those whose indulgences have made them incapable of work why is he ignoring the obese?

There are well over 2,000 fat folk who currently claim they are incapable of working because of their lardiness.

These include the Chawner family from Blackburn who between the four of them (that's parents Philip and Audrey and daughters Emma and Samantha) weigh 83 stone and claim £22,000 a year in benefits.

Not only are people like this as contemptible as the boozers but they are much more simply monitored.

Just set them a weight reduction programme, install an industrial-sized set of scales in every benefits office and pay them in pounds.

Pounds lost, that is.

Perhaps Mr Purnell will consider the idea when he sobers up.
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