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The Iraqi benefits queen YOU pay for – why housing benefit is a farce our useless MPs will not deal with

Tom Winnifrith
Sunday 31 March 2013

This will make your blood boil. Bushra al-Rahimi is an Iraqi national. She lives in London and was given housing benefit to cover the cost of a flat in an exclusive part of Westminster which she then let out at £4,000 a week. Finally she has been booted out of that accommodation and ordered to repay rent arrears of £30,800 BUT…

She is now living in an Islington flat paid for by housing benefits which in the private sector would cost £5,000 a month to rent. She continues to get a Jobseekers Allowance worth £71 a week. God knows what other benefits this parasite is getting.

This just defies belief:

a) This woman has broken the law. Is it not possible to amend our laws so that if someone arrives in this country seeking political asylum we make it explicitly clear that if they commit any crime (including benefits fraud) they will be sent back home (even if it means they face persecution) with all their dependents automatically? It is a sort of social contract: we give you safety but you MUST obey the law.

b) Why the hell does she get to choose where to stay? If the taxpayer is funding her housing costs can we not elect to house her in a slum house in Burnley rather than a £2 million Westminster luxury apartment? At least stick this cockroach out in Newham or somewhere cheaper than Westminster. If the taxpayer pays the bill the taxpayer has a right to decide where someone lives.

c) Her penalty for being caught stealing from the taxpayer seems to be swapping one luxury address for another. A flat that rents out at £5000 pcm in Islington (i.e. £60,000 a year) is probably worth c£1.5 million.  This woman has never paid a cent in UK tax. She has never worked here. She is a criminal. And she gets to live (at no cost to her) in the sort of place that 98% of the population cannot afford to live in.

And here am I working on Easter Day in the knowledge that a good portion of my labours will go in tax to support this crap, Heather Frost and so much more. On the left politicians block welfare reform. The Tories say they are tackling it but this sort of thing keeps on happening again and again and I just do not believe them anymore.  The Tories are spineless and useless.

Reasons to want to see the entire political class string up with piano wire and/or to stop working and go live on a smallholding in Greece. This is one. Angry does not even start to describe how I feel.

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About Tom Winnifrith
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Tom Winnifrith is the editor of TomWinnifrith.com. When he is not harvesting olives in Greece, he is (planning to) raise goats in Wales.
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