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In its effort to save money on the working age welfare bill, the government has used some bold imagery. The Chancellor is fond of saying, "where is the fairness...for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next-door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?" And the Prime Minister has talked of the benefits bill "sky-rocketing" while "generations languish on the dole and dependency". The benefit scrounger is the bogeyman of British politics, stalking the corridors of Westminster.