Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland said the reassessment of Incapacity Benefit recipients was making a real difference to the lives of people who would otherwise have been left trapped in the benefits system. It is the British taxpayer who has to foot the bill for those who opt out of working for a living.

It's making a real difference to the lives of many people who are seriously mentally or physically disabled by either removing their benefit or making them feeling extremely insecure at a time of soaring unemployment. And the British "taxpayer" funds everything from obscenely-high salaries and bonuses in private companies to the huge dividends that go into the coffers of shareholders in multi-billion-quid-profit companies. If we didn't spend our money they wouldn't exist. And I care not a jot whether the money I shell out is tax or whether it comes straight out of my pocket. It's still money. It's about time we ditched this bogus notion that it's only the public sector or benefits claimants who are beholden to the bloody "taxpayer."