Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Pounds (£) for pounds

Too fat to work - Times Online: "Almost two thousand people who are too fat to work have been paid a total of £4.4 million in benefit, it emerged last night. Other payments went to fifty sufferers of acne and ten incapacitated by leprosy. Billions of pounds is being paid in benefits to people claiming to be unable to work because they suffer from depression, stress, fatigue and unknown or unspecified diseases. The full list of ailments of the 2.7 million people claiming £7.4 billion in incapacity benefits, obtained by using Freedom of Information laws, will fuel suspicion that it is being used to keep them off the official jobless total. It will also fuel the debate over whether British workers could have been hired for more of the one million new jobs taken by migrants since 1997."