Only wealthy aristocrats like George Osborne could pretend that unemployment is a lifestyle choice

It was the day before the morning I was to do a radio phone-in on unemployment for BBC Southern Counties that I had learned from George Osborne, the chancellor, that being unemployed was "a lifestyle" that the coalition government would put an end to.

Mr Osborne is, of course, an expert in such things - being one of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and having been educated at St Paul's School, London, and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Having set up Brighton Unemployed Centre 33 years ago and having been a volunteer during that time, I had never come across anyone this mythical creature - the person who has chosen unemployment as "a lifestyle" - who is as elusive as the Abominable Snowman.

Of course, there are many people who choose to bring up children, look after the disabled, care for elderly relatives and volunteer for charities. But I've never met anyone who preferred to stay in bed all day and live on around £60 a week.

Apparently, though, all claimants are "benefit scroungers" and society consists of the strivers versus the shirkers. Most people I have met would love a job, especially if the state could take over childcare.

As someone who graduated in law 12 years ago and specialised in employment law, I've lost count of the number of people who have come to me to say they're afraid they're going to be made redundant and lose their job.

Mr Cameron believes there is jealousy on council estates that some people are asleep when others are working. The reality, though, is slightly different. People are scared of being thrown into abject poverty and being evicted.

The coalition has made clear its determination to cut the award of Disability Living Allowance from £10 billion to £8 billion through the introduction of a new benefit, Personal Independence Payments.

What it is likely to do is to trap people in their home, as they will no longer be awarded a mobility grant.

It has nothing to do with who is "deserving"; it will mean that people will no longer be able to care for severely-disabled children and adults. And the state will spend even more money as they are left caring for children and disabled adults.

Having a job gives people a sense of self-worth and identity. As a volunteer balancing caring and legal advice, nothing gave me more pleasure than winning an employment tribunal.

Yet the coalition has made it more difficult for people to work and survive. It raised the lowest tax rate (which has primarily benefited those paying higher taxes) and promptly made it more difficult to claim tax credits by increasing the number of hours worked from 16 to 24.

It also lowered corporation tax. Since 1998, CEOs of the top 100 FTSE companies have seen their remuneration increase from £1 million to £4.9 million, despite the value of their companies declining. For the top 10%, the share of national wealth has increased from 28% to 40% - and, for the top 0.1%, it has increased from 6% to 14%.

In January 2006, just before the financial crash, unemployment stood at 1.59 million; today, it is 2.47 million.

If Osborne is to be believed, then there has been a massive increase in idleness in the past seven years. Benefit increases has been so great that people have been tempted to give up their jobs!

When I was young unemployment hovered around the half a million level, since it was the unwritten agreement of both parties that the scourge of mass unemployment should never again show its face in Britain. Margaret Thatcher put paid to that.

All this has meant a loss of rights for workers. It is doubtful that zero-hours contracts, are even contracts. They take us back to the days when dockers had to turn up each day in the hope that there might be some work.

None of this is new. In the 18th century, the poor were also accused of idleness. And this led to the 1834 Poor Law and the workhouse. At the height of Thatcher's monetarist experiment, there was no suggestion of cutting benefits. Today, people have been convinced there is "no alternative" to making the poor pay.

Europe, the unemployed, foreigners, Bulgarians, single mothers. All are being blamed for a crisis not of their making.