Hatred of those on benefits is dangerously out of control

[tjwmason]

4. It's a natural end-point from the extreme individualism promoted from the '80s onwards

There is a cultural shift in which we are told that people can (and therefore should) look after themselves; and that people get 'what they deserve'...which makes it easy for us to see those who need to have some assistance as being less than fully human, and deserving of ridicule.

The conflation of different types of benefit, combined with an obsession over the (probably) tiny levels of fraud acts as grace-notes to a wider narrative which is a toxin in the national culture.