Great, just great. Apparently the government has managed to give out £2.6bn to the wrong people. But no fear! This rate is down from levels in 1997/98 where over £5bn went missing. Link

£2.6bn is 2.2% of the total money that is given away annually in benefits. So according to my rather bad maths the total money is (2.6*100)/2.2 billion About 118 billion pounds a year.

How is this sustainable? What could be done in the UK if that money were freed up (or more to the point - what couldn't be as that would be fewer things)?

This country needs to simplify the tax and credit system (to help the fraud which claims another couple of billion a year) and drastically reduce this astronomical amount of money that get given away.

Does not one in power equate the demise of the manufacturing sector with the fact that the utterly unskilled in the society are given more money for not working than is an economically viable wage for doing work that fits their "skill profile"? And if this was seen to be the end result of bieng unskilled I'd bet that far fewer people would end up this way.

But with our current wonderful democratic system the incentive is to pander to the masses and to sort this issue out would cost votes! Best ignore it then...