There are persons everywhere who would find the juxtaposition of the words “Respect” and “People on Benefits” very strange. Their knee-jerk response would be that people who choose to waste their time in school, have babies in their teens, and live off everyone else’s taxes, are not deserving of respect. Hell, I might even have been one of them, once. The first time I ever heard about Council tenants and people living off benefits was in the Isle of Wight, where I had taken my two sons for their summer holidays to stay with their grandmother. We were living in South Africa then and had no experience of the Welfare State. Though I can’t remember who he was, I remember walking down my mother’s street towards the Cowes Ferry and chatting with some bloke. We passed a small, two storey nest of flats with open balconies and summer flowers spilling from window boxes. “See them there?” my forgotten companion asked rather redundantly as we were right in front of ...