Television, drug of the nation

So anyone is immoral if they do their best to minimise their tax bill, maximise the benefits that they receive and maximise their income within the boundaries of the law? Righto.

I would argue that many very rich people who use extreme but legal tax avoidance measures are immoral, but not ordinary people who try to minimise tax or maximise the benefits they get within the law are fine.

Regarding your second point... yes some people behave like they are scum... but I'd be considerably more interested in hearing a solution. Bashing people on benefits for their moral failings is both easy and pointless. Ensuring that their are fewer people in this position by helping deprived parents bring their kids up properly, extracting kids from hopeless family situations and into an environment where they can thrive (very hard, lots of cash needed), helping ensure greater equality of opportunity in terms of education / activities / trips for all and not just for the parents of the rich, more respect for relatively unskilled but vital jobs, more opportunities for work (I don't blame people for giving up when they have spent years never seeing any evidence of persistance paying off).

In short your response seems to be a heartless, pointless criticism of some of the most vulnerable in society. I find that heartless and pointless.

In a former life I spent years as a social worker (and at the time, before you make some cheap point, was highly regarded by my employers and clients) - some you can help but these days sadly there is a group at the bottom that are pretty much beyond help - there is an intergenerational culture which means they are simply beyond being engaged in any sort of civilized society. To them I find myself completely heartless these days. If they want to live according to their standards, norms and values I say fence them off, sterilise them and leave them to it. Anything else is pointless.

These days I spend a lot of my paid time tracking down directors who hide behind limited companies in order to evade creditors and the crown and taking their money, toys and holiday homes off them.