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We have to stop the scroungers and spongers

The latest New Labour wheeze comes from housing minister Caroline Flint: social housing residents should seek work as a condition of their tenancy.

There is certainly a problem in some housing estates that are home to families who have been unemployed for a generation or two. But many of these people have few skills to offer or live in areas where there is little work of any kind. And matters have been aggravated by the one-size-fits-all school system which has levelled pupils down to the standard of the lowest. Nor does it help when the benefits system with its subistence payouts, still leaves many people better off than if they were working and paying tax out of their minimum wages. What is Ms Flint proposing should be done about that? If nothing, why should she expect people to go jobseeking for jobs that are not there, or they could not do, and nobody that would employ them or when they would be worse off than living off their meagre benefits

Why don't politicians think before they open their mouths?
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