Drugs Granny

I laughed last week at a comment in one of the Sunday newspapers from the old Tory war-horse - Michael Heseltine. 

Margaret Thatcher's nemesis and one-time darling of the Conservative party said something along the lines of - 'the country is now paying more people not to work - than we sent to fight Hitler in World War II'.

I laughed because at the same time - in the same newspaper - was a report about a 'drugs granny' who had been convicted along with her extended family of running a criminal gang - while claiming £5,000 a year on benefits.

If I remember correctly the drugs gang came from Liverpool and had blighted the lives of local people for years -  during which time their criminal careers were effectively being heavily subsidised by the state.

Now I'm all in favour of clamping down on people who don't pay their taxes - but I also support the need to tackle the widespread abuse of the benefits system - by people who haven't done an honest day's work in years. 

The police are fond of telling us that most crime is caused by a relatively small number of people - in every town and city in the land.

Who are apparently well known to the authorities - as repeat offenders and cynical career criminals.

In which case why is there not a coordinated and sustained effort to target the people and the families involved - because they are making monkeys out of the rest of us twice over?

While it's never easy to convict hardened criminals who are used to milking the system - it's surely not rocket science for the various authorities to work together with the police - to turn off the benefits tap.