PIP recipients in Glasgow are taking the piss, rent free flat virtually no council tax, maximum winter fuel payment, 3000 pound furniture grant when first moving in. I don't mind the genuine claimants who are disabled getting money but at least 70% of claims are now fraudulent there being nothing physically or mentally wrong just well versed good actors who top up their illicit benefit claims working on the side, selling tax free cigs and booze, always crying poverty and mostly voting SNP.

The paradox of IHT is that a majority of voters dislike the idea of the tax even though very few of them will actually pay it. Perhaps this is due to the lottery effect ie if the voter were lucky enough to get a windfall, they wd not want to surrender it at death, rather than pass it on to their heirs.

This is mind blowing. The benefits bill in Gillingham and Rainham(Kent) £235 million. £55 million in PIP. Total benefits per person £2200. up 20% since Labour came to power.Why am I claiming nothing? Stop PIP for a year slashing the benefits bill by nearly a quarter.Would that balance the budget? If not slash the benefits bill until the budget balances.A few people starving or freezing (allegedly) probably not much of a lose for the UK.Though the biggest boat load of criminal invaders, illegal migrants, to reach the UK had 230 on board they will cost the UK £230 million, so I suppose it puts in context.

A country that issues its own fiat currency does not strictly need to borrow in the same way a household, firm, or currency-user does, but it still issues debt for practical, institutional, macroeconomic, and political reasons.Core distinctionA sovereign government that issues its own floating fiat currency (e.g., the US, Japan, UK, Canada, Australia) can always create more of that currency. It cannot “run out of money” in its own unit the way a private actor can. Default in its own currency is a political or policy choice, not a technical necessity. This is a central insight associated with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and is also recognized in mainstream monetary economics when discussing a monetary sovereign.Yet virtually every such country still issues bonds (borrows). The reasons are not primarily “to fund spending” in the narrow sense.Why governments still issue debtInflation and demand management Creating new money and spending it injects purchasing power. If the economy is near capacity, this can raise inflation. Selling bonds drains reserves/money from the private sector, offsetting that injection. Bond issuance is one tool (alongside taxes and interest-rate policy) for managing aggregate demand and inflation.Interest-rate control Central banks target interest rates. Government bond markets and open-market operations are the main mechanisms for setting and transmitting those rates. Without a stock of government securities, the central bank’s ability to implement monetary policy would look very different.Institutional and legal constraints Most countries prohibit the central bank from directly financing the treasury (“monetary financing”). Governments therefore sell bonds to private buyers (or the central bank buys them in the secondary market). These rules exist to limit political pressure for excessive money creation and to preserve central-bank independence.Safe assets and financial plumbing Government bonds are the premier risk-free asset in the financial system. Banks, pension funds, insurers, money-market funds, and foreign governments hold them for liquidity, collateral, duration matching, and regulatory purposes. A continuous supply of these assets supports the functioning of money markets and the broader financial system.Credibility, politics, and signaling Markets and voters often treat bond issuance as more “disciplined” than pure money creation. Large-scale direct monetization can undermine confidence in the currency’s future value, raise inflation expectations, and trigger political backlash. Borrowing at market rates provides a visible price signal about fiscal sustainability (even if the signal is imperfect).Foreign-currency and external constraints Even a monetary sovereign may need foreign exchange for imports, debt denominated in foreign currency, or reserve management. Domestic money creation does not automatically generate foreign currency. Countries with large external deficits or histories of instability face tighter practical limits.What actually constrains spendingFor a pure monetary sovereign with a floating exchange rate and debt only in its own currency, the real constraints are:Inflation and real resource availability (labor, materials, productive capacity).Exchange-rate effects and imported inflation.Political willingness to tax or cut spending later if needed.Institutional rules and market confidence.Taxes do not “fund” spending in a mechanical sense for such a government; they create demand for the currency, help control inflation, and redistribute. Bond sales similarly serve macroeconomic and institutional functions more than pure financing.Exceptions and nuancesCountries that do not issue their own currency (eurozone members, dollarized economies, currency boards) genuinely need to borrow or earn foreign currency; they face hard budget constraints similar to households.Even monetary sovereigns can face self-imposed or market-imposed limits if inflation expectations become unanchored or if political institutions break down.Historical episodes of high inflation or hyperinflation usually involved large fiscal deficits financed by money creation amid collapsing real output, loss of tax capacity, or loss of confidence—not merely the technical ability to print.In short: the ability to issue fiat currency removes the pure solvency constraint in the domestic unit of account, but governments still borrow because money creation has macroeconomic consequences, because financial systems rely on government debt as a safe asset, and because institutional and political arrangements deliberately separate fiscal and monetary powers. The decision is about managing the economy and the currency’s value, not about whether the government can “afford” to spend in its own money.PS I only drink Bollinger.

Unbelievable. Prosperous Sutton & Cheam constituency over £150m in one year. Yes, every postcode has it's problems and out there are the genuine ones. But, it would probably cost the total benefits bill for one year again to actually weedle them out, pay them a bit more, and toss the scroungers and those that game the system to the wolves.Where we go from here is anyone's guess but with a UK national debt of £3 trillion the portents for the future and our children and grandchildren are truly frightening.Thanks for making this available Tom, and special thanks to the Taxpayers Alliance. I know for one I couldn't have spent my lifetime loafing around expecting handouts - nor would my wife, but thankfully we were in good health then, sadly not now, but still only receive the state pension and private income from investments etc, not a penny piece from the "state".

And yet you somehow managed to avoid reporting that the directors bought over 1m HERC shares in July? More balance please.Btw, Paul Wheatcroft is pushing 70.