The British state is running a Ponzi scheme right under your nose - and it's a ticking time bomb - Renee Hoenderkamp

As a latchkey kid in East London, we had very little, but that didn’t matter. We were growing into a world where I knew respect came from doing well for oneself.

So when mum got home from work, she then devoted the hours before bed to teaching me; maths using cupcakes that we cooked together, teaching me to cook by creating tasty meals from offal because it was cheap and English by talking and storytelling.

She told me that I could be anything I wanted, and the harder I worked, the more I would get from life. And she was right. I left school without a bean to my name, but I worked hard. I excelled. I wobbled a bit and didn’t go to university (then), but I talked my way into publishing and earned a good living. I bought my first flat when I was just shy of 20 and went from there. After a career in publishing, I went on later to qualify as a doctor, and my graduation was for sure mums proudest day.

Along the way, I have seen governments of both colours and paid a lot of tax. But that was okay. It was the contract: work hard, pay tax, get out of society what you put in. It seemed to work, and even under Tony Blair, it still seemed to hold true, more or less.

Now I feel things have changed. That social contract appears to be broken in so many ways, and whilst I do accept that buying a house was easier for me than kids today, and a girl with the gift of the gab would be unlikely to talk themselves in to a job with Robert Maxwell, at the same time, we didn’t have a society where those earning a decent wage and paying more tax than they have in decades appear to be the enemy. Tell me that I am wrong, but it seems to me now that the harder you work and the better you do for yourself, the more despised you seem to be.

Look at the winter fuel allowance. A meagre £200-300 pounds a year, given to all pensioners to help overwinter the exorbitant cost of heating your home. We know that cold kills more people than heat by a magnitude of 10, and most of those killed are the very pensioners who had this benefit cruelly pulled from under them by this new Labour government.

A government that appears to despise anyone who does or has worked for their income. It is becoming ever apparent that hard work, saving for a rainy day or paying for your kids to be educated outside of the taxpayer-funded system is now a sign that you are bad. You are greedy. You are privileged. You are inherently ‘wealthy’ and deserve disdain and to pay more into the system to support those who have not had your luck. And they do assume it was sheer luck, not hard work, that got you wherever it is that they view as dirty.

As someone who does indeed live a very privileged life, I know that I did it all. It wasn’t luck, I didn’t inherit a bean, I didn’t get lucky in some dot-com boom.

I just worked and worked some more, I still do, and I paid my tax and worked a bit harder. Like so many working-class people, we worked, we paid our dues, we saved for a rainy day. We paid more when asked, and when we looked around, most of our peers did the same. But something has changed, and with this latest governmental iteration, it feels dark. It feels like they hate us, and they will bleed us until we bleed no more.

The debate I have heard so many times recently that brought me to this point is around winter fuel allowance and “why should millionaires like Alan Sugar get WFA?”.

On the surface, that seems like a reasonable argument, but it isn’t. It is the canary in the coal mine, actually, for a rapidly developing hatred of anyone who has done well for themselves. Let's unpick it. Firstly, it always costs more to means test a benefit than to give it universally, and as money pears to be in short supply, surely prudence over ideology should rule. Secondly, let’s consider those millionaires that this government seem so determined to deprive of £300 even though it will cost the taxpayer more to do so… millionaires who will have, and probably still do, paid more tax in a year than most people earn.

Millionaires who build businesses that employ thousands of people, that pay corporation tax, business tax, VAT and so on. And then move down the earnings ladder to people considered too well off to get a universal benefit. People like me and you who worked, paid tax and often scrimped and saved to send our kids to private school or to pay for and use private health care are being punished for our efforts. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore that we still pay the tax for our state school place and NHS attention that we don’t use, removing the system of burden whilst still funding it. This is seen as another red flag for punishment.

Now we are told that our pensions are at risk, that young people can’t be expected to pay for our retirement, like the retired now, once paid for those retired ahead of them.

The triple lock is under scrutiny. Those savings are in the sights of Rachel Reeves. The list goes on.

It seems that the real recipe for the state to provide is never to have paid in, perhaps never even to have worked a day. Then you will get everything going. Dare to be responsible, and you might be in trouble when you need help, is the complete opposite of what you were told, that you get out what you put in. Now, the more you put in, the lower the chances of getting anything out.

The welfare state is a Ponzi scheme, and fewer and fewer people are contributing more and more to take out. It will, like all Ponzi schemes, collapse. And then the truly vulnerable, and there are always a tiny minority who truly fall into this group, will be in trouble. This is what happens when you continually punish those who work hard; eventually, they throw in the towel.