State benefits for the feckless rich; Views of the North.

PERHAPS the writer of your June 12 editorial entitled "Benefits and Drawbacks' can explain how the "behemoth of a [benefits] system traps families in state dependence" and requires reform? In the New Year, The Journal launched a worthy campaign calling for tolerance towards the victims of the recession. Yet this editorial implied that living on benefits was an easy option despite the fact that benefits in the UK lag far behind similar systems in Europe.

In a recent poll, 55% of people believed the ridiculous idea that benefits were too generous and undermined the will to work.

There was no mention of a lack of jobs or an ever-increasing world of low paid, part time and temporary employment. It is therefore somewhat ironic these people support work that actually destroys jobs.

The New Economics Foundation has calculated that for every pounds 1 of wages received, the highly paid workers in the City destroy pounds 7 of social value.

Would it not be sensible to make those who inflict social carnage and unemployment pay for it via a punitive tax regime? Media commentators are very quick to call for rioters to pay for their actions, so why not the perpetrators of wider social suffering? Labelling a section of society as "state dependent" without considering a wider definition of dependency (bailouts, grants tax holidays and so on) makes discrimination and intolerance towards the unemployed more acceptable.

The truth is the unemployed are dependent upon state handouts largely because of failed economic policies, constraints on trade unions and low wages, while it is the City that is state dependent, which explains why it can act so recklessly.

Bailouts are simply state benefits for the undeserving and feckless rich. TONY BENNETT, Ashington, Northumberland