UK Self employment - nothing to be pleased about?

To continue yesterday's theme, here is a view expressed of the Left in the Guardian of late.

I can quite see from the links there that there must be some correlation to people seeking to keep benefits and not wanting or being able to do jobs to become 'self-employed' as a way of keeping most of the benefits. This would account for a big jump in the self-employed whilst a the same time the benefits bill is not dropping. To this extent perhaps employment is not so healthy.

On the other hand there are many figures suggesting that income from self-employment has dropped. This may be linked to the above if you look at averages, but also it corresponds to key tax issues - such as the few business that turn over more than £80k which would mean they paid VAT.
As an example of this there was the hairdresser named and shamed in 2013 by HMRC for not declaring income.

Either way, it is an interesting thought for me. I am all for self-employment as part of self-empowerment. But with the way the tax and benefit system has been structured, it either seems to be a route to access benefits or a route to dodge taxes; neither of which is a very good result for the Country as a whole.