David Cameron used the Karen Matthews case to "demonise" people on benefits, a Cabinet minister claimed today.
David Cameron used the Karen Matthews case to "demonise" people on benefits, a Cabinet minister claimed today.
In an online article published hours after Matthews was jailed for eight years for her role in staging the kidnap of her own daughter Shannon, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell accused the Conservatives of trying to stigmatise the unemployed by suggesting that any of them might do the same.
After 33-year-old Matthews' conviction in December, Mr Cameron wrote an article for the Daily Mail describing her guilty verdict as "a verdict on our broken society".
Under the headline "There are 5 million people on benefits in Britain. How do we stop them turning into Karen Matthews?" Mr Cameron warned of "a chain that links unemployment, family breakdown, debt, drugs and crime" in some of the UK's poorest estates.
Writing today on www.labourlist.org, Mr Purnell accused the Tory leader of "posturing" over the case without offering any serious policies to reform welfare.
He challenged Mr Cameron to back the Government's planned changes to the benefit system when its Welfare Reform Bill comes to the House of Commons next week.
Mr Purnell said that Karen Matthews "committed an evil crime", adding: "The fact that she was on benefits neither explains nor excuses it."
He wrote: "When Karen Matthews was convicted the Tories used the opportunity to demonise everyone on benefits.
"They argued that everyone on benefits was the next potential Karen Matthews. This is the same old Tory approach of being happy to stigmatise people out of work but not to help them back into work...
"Those who want to write off everybody on benefits because of the sick actions of one individual are wrong.
"They are wrong because it just lets her off the hook of her responsibility for her actions.
"And it stereotypes millions of people and thereby makes it harder for them to get back in to work."
Mr Purnell said that the true lesson from the Moorside estate in Dewsbury Moor where Matthews lived was that the whole community pulled together to search for her missing daughter and then "recoiled in horror" when they learnt what she had done.
"The truth is, whatever David Cameron says, people on benefits are not like Karen Matthews," wrote Mr Purnell.
"There are struggling families who need support. Those people need our help but in return they must take responsibility to help themselves."
Mr Purnell claimed that the Conservatives are planning to cut nearly £2 billion from programmes to help get the jobless back into work.
And he said: "The Tories are no more prepared to start helping people than they are to stop stigmatising them.
"I hope David Cameron stops pointing the finger and gets serious about welfare reform.
"That means that they stop posturing. And that they stop chasing headlines with vague promises and start backing real, specific policies.
"They can start by voting for our Welfare Reform Bill next week which will create a 'something for something' culture in the benefits system."
