WELL, now we know for sure that our new political masters intend to slash and burn their way through the benefits system under the banner of reform.

They would have us believe their aim is to get people off incapacity benefit and help them back into work. Yeah, right, what work?

Their real goal is to move them on to Jobseeker’s Allowance, which is a lower amount, regardless of the severity of their illness or ability to hold down a job. It’s a heartless, cold-blooded, cost-cutting campaign, targeting the weakest and most vulnerable members of society, and it stinks!

With the recession, that they helped to bring about, as their excuse these over-privileged, self-serving political opportunists are taking from the poor and needy to pay the gambling debts of the rich and greedy, while telling us it’s a fairer system.

Just in case we see the iniquity of this they appeal to our prejudice and resentment by using the abuses of a malingering minority to demonise all and corral public opinion into compliance.

One of the things I treasure about the British is our deep-seated sense of fairness, but I feel it’s being corroded by the malign influence of our ruthless leaders.

R Jones, Westerdale Court, Clifton, York.