Karl_ wrote:I definitely also remember New Labour using this kind of benefits cheats / scroungers rhetoric too. The fact that politicians at the time didn't stand up to it was a failure that I feel helped normalise the awful tabloid hatemongering against the welfare system that's still ongoing.
Exactly, it mustn't be forgotten that the demonisation of the sick and disabled began under the Labour govt when they decided to scrap Incapacity Benefit.
The creation of ESA (and the change to a much harsher assessments regime which led to ATOS and their successors) was devised by the then work and pensions secretary James Purnell, who under Gordon Brown, was tasked with kicking as many people off the system as possible.
To grease the wheels in order for this to happen, the public were bombarded regularly with press stories about how everyone claiming sickness was faking it, and how everyone knew someone who was a false claimant. Of course, all this (which as i said earlier, was turbocharged by the Cameron government) led to a system which has caused untold misery and suffering to thousands, but due to it being considered a good thing by society, there has never been any kind of reckoning, and is unlikely to see any change for the better.