William Beveridge paved the way for the welfare state 70 years ago. But do people now think more in terms of "scroungers" than the "deserving"? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20431729

State of Welfare http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p0fpg/The_State_of_Welfare/ (3 hours long)

Underemployment affects 10.5% of UK workforce http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20509189

Why John Lewis offers a model for modern welfare
Receipt of benefits should once again become dependent on a contribution record

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9711718/Why-John-Lewis-offers-a-model-for-modern-welfare.html

'I don't eat four days a week so my children can,' claims middle-class mother who cannot afford Christmas presents so is rewrapping their old toys

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2241079/Mother-Vickie-Robins-Quedgeley-Gloucestershire-starves-visits-Foodbank-ensure-children-eat.html#ixzz2DkVAPnzC

An army of benefit scroungers? The evidence just doesn't stack up

Our research into people on low incomes found little sign of the stereotype of the workshy claimant who doesn't deserve help
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/28/benefit-scroungers-child-poverty-parents

A lifetime's journey from postwar hope to impotent rage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/11/lifetime-postwar-hope-impotent-rage

As a middle-class, white, half-Welsh woman of 92, I was in on the birth of the social contract (Suzanne Moore, G2, 10 January). I am already struggling with impotent rage as I witness its bland destruction. I was a civil servant in London in 1942 when the Beveridge report came out. We read it all avidly as a heartening message of hope for a better future. Bombs had been falling mainly on docks, railways, industrial areas and the poorer parts of many towns. The blitz had revealed dramatically the appalling inequalities in British life. The wartime coalition government laid out the practical ways we should go forward in peace. We all voted in the landslide Labour government of 1945. Admittedly, many people assumed that Churchill would still be prime minister and were surprised that meek Mr Attlee was leading us into our brave new world. But he did.

My husband had survived years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, so the continuing food rationing seemed a feast to him. We had our first baby the year the wonderful new National Health Service began. I am told by an elderly doctor that we never could have afforded the NHS, we were more bankrupt then than we are now. It always had to be supported strongly by the government and wanted by the people.

I watched Frank Skinner recently on TV say that he thought the NHS was Britain's greatest invention and that was confirmed last summer with Danny Boyle's moving pageant. It seems a wicked irony that our bunch of ignorant millionaires, in two years, have sold off large parts of our dear NHS, not just to Americans, but to those very same rightwing insurance millionaires who fought so hard to prevent Obama's attempts to improve their own health service.

I've spent the last 50 years futilely protesting against nuclear weapons (starting with a small women's march in the rain in May 1957), assuming that our basic social contract was secure under any government, and voting Lib Dem at elections. I was so heartened by Danny Boyle and the 70,000 happy volunteers that I stupidly thought there might be some change of heart in central policies. So, still remembering those hopeful 1950s, where am I to put my failing energies now?
Anne Piper
Wytham, Oxfordshire

Life on benefits: The starving of the 11 million
Benefits cuts are threatening to make life harder still for Britain’s lowest paid. Charlie Cooper tries getting by on £175 a week

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/life-on-benefits-the-starving-of-the-11-million-8448685.html

Conservative council leader quits over 'lie detector' tests on benefit claimants
Fiona Ferguson resigns saying controversial Voice Risk Analysis software could do enormous damage to Cornwall council

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/23/conservative-council-lie-detector-benefits

'Our parents pay tax so we're entitled to benefits': Couple living off £17k handouts say working for the minimum wage is unfair

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2270247/ITV-This-Morning-Couple-living-17k-handouts-say-working-minimum-wage-unfair.html#ixzz2JPaLPMj2

The benefits debate explained. Is it really skivers v strivers?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/feb/05/benefits-debate-explained-skiver-striver

Government 'misrepresenting' the poor, say churches http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21625446

The lies we tell ourselves
http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Truth-And-Lies-Report-smaller.pdf

Neglect of the weak was not invented with the National Health Service
The Stafford hospital scandal is far from unprecedented. Dickens and Gladstone would have recognised this human weakness

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/neglect-national-health-service-dickens-glastone

Work minister Lord Freud: Demand for food banks ‘has nothing to do with benefits squeeze’
Astonishing claim from the millionaire welfare minister

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/work-minister-lord-freud-demand-for-food-banks-has-nothing-to-do-with-benefits-squeeze-8684005.html

British Social Attitudes report http://www.bsa-30.natcen.ac.uk/

Who Benefits http://www.whobenefits.org.uk/page/content/front

Welfare reform: 'A Tsunami of fear'
Debt, hunger, and stress emerge as key themes from the first phase of an ongoing study of the social impact of welfare reform

http://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2013/sep/24/welfare-reform-study-debt-hunger-tsunami-of-fear

Wonder if Cooper managed
Also, how did he manage to get more than me

Exclusive: Red Cross launches emergency food aid plan for UK’s hungry
Welfare cuts and the economic downturn send soaring numbers of people to soup kitchens and food banks across Europe

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-red-cross-launches-emergency-food-aid-plan-for-uks-hungry-8872496.html

The Nasty Party is back, sneering at food banks and those who use them
First they peddled the Big Society, now the Tories bad-mouth these community projects

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-nasty-party-is-back-sneering-at-food-banks-and-those-who-use-them-8884442.html

Take care you don't miss out on helper's allowances
People struggling to look after ill or disabled loved ones often aren't aware there is help in the form of allowances

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/oct/26/care-allowances-ill-disabled-help