Shameless and clueless

The class warriors over at Conservative Home have got a new website called mylabourposter, which has pictures of people such as immigrants, burglars, foreigners, the BBC etc. and the caption 'I've not voted Labour before, but' and then reasons why these people like Labour. One of the posters is Frank Gallagher from Shameless, saying "I've never voted Labour before, but I can see the benefits".

One nice thing about these posters is that some of them have an explanation beneath them to explain the joke to anyone who finds the humour a bit too subtle. For the benefits one, their "fact" is "Labour's over-complex welfare system means there has been more benefit fraud and less incentive to work".

Really?

When Labour came to power, £1.7bn/year was lost in benefit fraud. In 2008, less than half that amount was lost in fraud, 0.6% of expenditure.

When Labour came to power, more than 700,000 workers paid 70% or more marginal tax rates, meaning there was little incentive to work. Indeed, some workers actually had marginal tax rates of more than 100%. After the 2008 budget, 200,000 workers pay 70% or more marginal tax rates.

It's bad enough that conservatives think their readers are too dim to get their jokes unless they explain them. It's even worse that their explanation is actually wrong.