THE majority of unemployed people want to work. Some are so dismayed at being unemployed that, instead of doing nothing, or rioting and looting, they are travelling to London to let the Government know that they want to work.

It is morally wrong, and a distortion of the facts, to use a minority of people as evidence that the unemployed, the working classes and those in rented housing are all workshy parasites defrauding the benefit system.

Such claims are made not just by firms wishing to move overseas or employ cheaper migrant workers, but also by the previous and present Government to distract from failed immigration policies and to justify spending cuts.

CT Riley, Spennymoor.