THE brutal rhetoric used by the Con/Dem government in demonising people on benefits during the run-up to the January 8 welfare debate in the House of Commons has been the rhetoric of a schoolyard bully. Some of the rhetoric used by Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne and DWP Sec of State Iain Duncan Smith from “that people on benefits look through their bedroom curtains and laugh at people going to work”, to “people on benefits spend their benefits on cider, cigarettes, and satellite TV” is beyond belief.

This rhetoric is similar to that used in 1930s Germany by the Nazis in demonising the Jewish population. Capping benefits, cutting housing benefit, and later in the year paying all benefit claimants monthly instead of fortnightly at reckless breakneck speed is not the way forward. Of course the Government should be applauded for tackling the sensitive subject of benefit changesand cutting the spiralling welfare budget bill. But the only thing this will do is force people deeper into poverty and despair.

Wayne Thomas Monmouth Walk Markham Blackwood