IDS: Benefits Fantasies

This weekend seems as good a time as any to discuss the idea that ice-cream consumption causes shark attacks: the concept commonly used to demonstrate the fallacy “post hoc ergo propter hoc”, or “after this therefore because of this”. Ice cream sales rise in hot weather. So too do shark attacks. But to see a causal link is plainly ridiculous. There is a correlation, but no causation. I mention this to show why politicians are taking all the wrong precautions against British people being eaten by sharks. Such as the attempt to make children happier by offering couples £150 tax breaks to get married.

This clash of real facts and bizarre decisions reaches an embarrassing nadir whenever Iain Duncan Smith tries to justify cuts to welfare. Confronted by evidence, IDS keeps hitting back with his opinion. He “believes” that there is plenty of affordable housing in London, he says. He “believes” that benefit caps cause jobs to exist. He probably believes that the scent of a Mr Whippy enrages sharks.

All the evidence compiled by statisticians in his own department says he is wrong about benefit caps, and the facts reported by The Independent last week show that he’s wrong about the “bedroom tax” too, but Mr Duncan Smith sticks rigidly to his beliefs. The problem is, belief doesn’t make employment and housing exist any more than it stops a fairy dying, and it’s about time the Government grew up and learnt to tell evidence from utter baloney.

A recent survey showed that public opinion is almost as out of kilter with the facts as IDS is. Among the examples: the public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed. The real figure is 70p in every £100. Then, 29 per cent of people think that more is spent on Job Seekers’ Allowance than on pensions. In fact, pensions cost 15 times more.

My hypothesis is that persuading the public to hold false beliefs enables governments to get away with cruelly targeting the poor. My conclusion is that we should feed IDS an enormous ice cream and tell him to go and play near deep water.

by Katy Guest  in ‘The Independent’