Shop A Scrounger and Win A Skoda

Although Britain has no shortage of have-a-go heroes prepared to fight benefits fraud wherever they find it, the payback has been a little less salutary; at least if one happens to number oneself among those boorish and backsliding types who concern themselves with mere facts. Between 2010 and 2015, eighty-five per cent of benefits fraud cases resulting from tales tattled by members of the public were abandoned on the grounds of insufficient evidence or no evidence at all; abandoned, that is, not by some wishy-washy legal-aid lawyer, but by the Department of Workfare and Privation's very own Idleness Police. Great was the Murrovian indignation of the Liberal Democrats, who unfortunately were not part of the government between 2010 and 2015 and thus had no opportunity to bring their moral superiority to bear upon the burgeoning McCarthyite atmosphere. In general, the DWP manages to recoup its losses from false claims by underpaying claimants who are genuinely entitled; unfortunately, although the department is run by the brilliant Iain Duncan Smith, who can probably count all the fingers of one finger if given sufficient time to cogitate, it remains unclear whether the money spent on investigating false claims of false claims outweighs the unfortunate lapse into solvency.