j4ane50 - I agree with you that "The Welfare State and National Health Service are the backbone of this nation ... ", but those who sponge and cheat are as much culprits as they lead everyone to tar genuine claimants with the same brush. In addition, the welfare state was designed to help those who were temporarily incapacitated or ill, not the lumpen unemployable who blame everyone else, shirk repsonsiblity for everything, contribute nothing and never will. I don't think anyone has said that one person is "lesser" than another, but I am sick of helping to support professional breeders who have never worked and never will. Incidentally, folks across the street, four kids to four fathers by the age of 21, wide screen tv, (easily visible through wide open curtains), PC too, nice car, 3/4 holidays a year, assorted prams lying in the garden in the rain, (well, why look after them - the social will get a shiny new one when the next pup comes along), toys scattered everywhere, and absolutely no manners between them. These are the people the cuts should target!
Furthermore, the elitist public school toffs in the last Labour government did a damned good job of fcuking up the country before the Tories even got there.