By and large I believe in the welfare state, but I do know some people who abuse it. I call very much to mind a chap, Marcus, locally to me who was a claimant and ducker and diver (and drinker, and how).

One day in conversation in the pub that now is no longer there I came to realise that he was in fact rather intelligent.

A little while later I started suggesting ways he could get jobs and get himself off the dole.

His response: "Why would I want to do that?".


Curiously, I gather that he later did do exactly that and is no longer drinking destructively, at least not all the time.