Labour's new spotlight

The government is hot on the trail of the lying, thieving benefit cheat. Buses in my part of town feature advertisements for this campaign including one that depicts a thin, mixed-race, young woman who looks like she wants to fold into herself. The ad tells us she thinks that because she hasn’t declared that she has a partner living with her she’s not guilty of ‘benefit fraud’.

She is! Indeed, she stands accused of being a ‘benefit thief’. But, allowing my imagination a brief flight I can conjure several scenarios. She’s lonely and has met a new lover and he has moved in. Will he stay a week? Will he be gone in six weeks or six months? If she declares him as living with her and he leaves her, how long before the benefits are reinstated? What if he is only there some of the time and has kept on his own accommodation? At what point has he moved in? Perhaps he’s living with her but has not the means or desire to financially contribute to her home life. What if, his living in her home actually costs her money?

She’s a pariah. But not so the tax fraudster, cheat, thief. That person is wealthy and therefore not to be harassed.

I confess that these days I hear the word benefit in a quite benign context and I jump. I’m a person in the spotlight of the benefit police.