THERE’S a school of thought that claims the root cause of Britain’s dire financial position is that too many people are happily living off benefits . They’re not talking about students, early retirees and the genuinely long-term sick, but those who, they believe, choose to be economically inactive. Even though most can’t find appropriate jobs.
As the great sage of Ashfield, Lee Anderson, put it: “Let’s be clear, bone-idle dole scroungers should be made to work and if they don’t, they should have their benefits stopped.” Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (Dorset’s biggest landowner who was a Tory MP until being booted out in July) argued that if the idle classes “aren’t prepared to contribute to our country” they must “do two years in the Armed Forces”. And right-wing media siren Isabel Oakeshott advocated making them pick up litter as it would provide them with “camaraderie” and “a sense of accomplishment”.
You just know that whenever the populists or the wealthy talk venomously about “workshy scroungers” they are punching down at the working-class. As though laziness and hand-out grabbing was exclusively a disease of the feckless lower orders. But why don’t they ever punch upwards? It’s not as though we’re short of examples of the rich reclining in villas due to cronyism, connections or birthright.
Take the sovereign’s brother, Prince Andrew. He is currently banished from all royal duties after disgracing himself by .