For many years, the Daily Mail has been the most popular newspaper in the United Kingdom. This is true for both their versions online and in print. From January 2021 to June 2021, there was a daily readership figure of 2,050,000. For that period, 83% were homeowners and 366,000 had savings/investments of £100k or more. Whilst their figures have been on a steady decline since 2010, they remain very strong in comparison to their competitors. They are exceptionally strong online, with many more monthly views than the opposition.

The point is that anything the Daily Mail publishes reaches a large section of the population and can have a big impact. As it’s well known to be a right wing newspaper, it also reaches a significant number of Conservative Party voters.

Today they published an article titled Shocking rise of ‘something for nothing Britain’: Over half of households get more from the State than they pay in tax… while top 10% of earners account for 53% of all income tax

It is based on a report published by Civitas.

What the MPs say

According to the article, Sir Iain Duncan Smith (former DWP Secretary and architect of Universal Credit), “lockdown changed the psyche of the British people”. He went on to say:

‘For all those years, we told them you can’t get something for nothing, and all of sudden they did. The British public thought the Government could do it all – even pay their salaries and they don’t have to work.’

Long standing Tory MP John Redwood said:

‘We need to encourage more people back into work.’

Another Tory MP, Ben Bradley, has stated:

‘None of this is sustainable. You can’t have more people taking out than putting in.’

‘As a society we need to have a serious conversation about our levels of demand and expectation of the State.’

Blue ignorance

It should be blatantly obvious to many people that not all benefit claimants are the same. Not everyone fits a particular stereotype peddled by this article – the ‘workshy layabout’.

Whilst John Redwood claims more people need to be in work, it doesn’t mean that more people will be out of poverty or fewer people will be claiming benefits. Universal Credit (implemented by the Tories) is a top-up benefit. The government’s own statistics show that (in December 2021) 42% of people claiming this benefit are in work. This will include some of the 72.4% of people in the East Riding of Yorkshire who are employed full time. Also, due to the cost of living crisis, this additional top-up benefit isn’t a cure all. Remember, the uplift introduced in the pandemic was later withdrawn. There are so many claimants out there who work one or more jobs in an effort to get as much income as possible.

Think of the disabled – the 14.6 million people who have a disability in the UK. That’s approximately 22% of the population. he number of disabled people has increased over time. Some may never have been able to work. Others may have been able to work at some stage, but e.g. an injury or illness has prevented them from working in the way they used to. In many cases like these, people will not be able to work again and they rely on state support like PIP and UC to survive on a day to day basis. For an article – and MPs in the ruling party of this country – to seemingly ignore such a large percentage of the population (or be ignorant of their situation) is horrendous.

In conclusion

The role of a good government is to help those in need. It’s also the role of  government to improve things so there’s fewer people in poverty.

We cannot have a situation where people are forced into work that makes their health worse. We cannot have a situation where those who fall on hard times are demonised for not being rich enough.

State support should be accepted and not be perceived as form of embarrassment.

Crucially, state support should be enough to help people cope when it’s needed.

Reducing this at a time when we’re still feeling the effects of a pandemic and are in a cost of living crisis makes no sense. Creating a situation that leads to more debt and more homelessness makes no sense.

We have Tory MPs demonising the poor and vulnerable and showing that they do not care about the levelling up that has become such a major slogan in their party.

Graham Stuart was contacted so we could find out what his views are, but there was no response. However, based on his voting record, he is likely to agree with his colleagues and give less to those in need.

Enough is enough.