Jeremy Hunt: "Don't expect us to pay for your children"

i saw jeremy Hunt and some other horrible tory on newsnight last night
thought they were utterly vile

very depressing to have tories in charge again, and the Lib dems may as well not be there for all the good they're doing in damping down the poor/single-parent bashing that's going on. In fact I hope the lib dems are thoroughly sodding ashamed of themselves.

people's circumstances change, people lose jobs, they may have many children that they were previously supporting what do the government want to happen to them? lose their homes, fall into poverty? it's the children that will take the brunt of this. I'm sure there is a tiny minority of piss-takers and scroungers but you can't base your whole welfare policy on this minority, it's not fair on the rest.

'having the temerity to breed while being on low incomes or unemployed'.

Quite, RamblingRosa. And as soon as govt starts punishing certain people for their choices it is making a moral judgement on them, which is not what the role of a democratic govt should be. Like justice, government should be blind but not deaf - impartial when it comes to people's class, circumstances etc, but able to listen to what people need. The idea that there might be some sort of prescriptiveness about who is entitled to have a child just makes me see red (in more ways than one). The point is, as someone said earlier, that education is the key - with better education comes better-thought-out choices about lifestyle, family size etc. If we can't be arsed to invest in education in this country, we certainly shouldn't punish people for the consequences or our short-termism.

Claig I so so agree with what you said about globalization further up the thread.

"They are creating a divide and conquer society, where they set one part of teh population up against the other. That way nobody looks at the policy that has created the lack of work in the first place - globalisation and global finance."

Couldn't agree more.

AbsofCroissant, the green fascist movement is a huge subject. It has more than just one goal. One of its goals is our impoverishment. That is why it targets the industrial economies with the "largest carbon footprint" and seeks to reduce their energy consumption and harm their industrial base. It also seeks to prevent the development of up and coming economies such as India and China, to prevent their prosperity and ability to support their growing populations. They encourage the growth of corn to produce ethanol and overcome the oil shortage, which as Fidel castro said will lead to mass starvation (population reduction).

"Feeding Cars and Starving the Poor

On March 29, 2007, Cuban leader Fidel Castro berated Bush?s economic initiatives for ethanol production in the Cuban Communist party newspaper Granma, stating that using corn, or any food source, to produce ethanol could result in the ?premature death? of upwards of three billion people. He explained that the drive to produce corn-based ethanol would hike up food prices around the world, adversely effecting poverty in developing countries. - Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 2007"

There are many other things behind the green fascist movement, that is championed by Eton educated types such as Porritt, Lord Melchett, Zac Goldsmith etc.

I agree that if you can't afford it don't have more than two. Welfare is there as a safety net for those that are prevented, either by disability/job loss, from providing and not for people to just think whatever happens the government will pay.

At the time when my parents were having me and my DBs, they could afford us all. DF was in a good and stable job. Unfortunately, when I was about 8, he was amde redundant, and struggled to find work, for YEARS (this was during the 1990s recession).
Now, my "D"M did admit to me once that they could only really afford two children, and as the last one out, I was the one they couldn't afford. but they kept me, didn't sell me to the work house, and I fortunately ended up being a "productive" [looks at MN usage and reconsiders] member of society, paying taxes and everything! Should I have been killed off when DF lost his job, for reasons beyond his control?

I can kind of agree, on one level, that if you really can't afford children at the time, and are having to rely on handouts and your children's livelihoods and well-being are compromised, you shouldn't have more. But, a) you never know what's going to happen and b) the government shouldn't be dictating how many children people have.

As for the green fascists movement - the countries with the largest carbon footprints are actually the ones with the smallest families. In 2000, 28% of the world's carbon came from the North American territories map. According to the US census bureau, the average number of children per family in the US is 3.14.

I'm no fan of the last government, but I also don't blindly follow this one. We need to nationalise our banks, so that they work for us, in our interests and so that their profits are all redistributed to us.

Most bankers are ordinary people and are not at fault. They also don't get million pound bonuses. It is the fatcats who were bailed out by us that I am talking about, not some 18 year old cashier, who had nothing to do with it. We paid huge allowances to keep the banks in operation and didn't even nationalise them. Every working person paid for that and we may yet be required to stump up more. We saved teh fatcats, and carried on paying their pensions and their bonuses. When they threaten to leave, it is not the bank cashiers that threaten to leave, it is the fatcats and speculators.

The poor and the powerless already manage their money responsibly. The media hunts around for rare cases that they can use to influence the public. When Labour's Caroline Flint warned the unemployed that they should "work or lose their homes" and needed to sign up for five year contracts, of course she was picking on the poor and vulnerable. When Jeremy Hunt warns "don't expect us to pay for your children", of course he is picking on the poor and powerless.

@claig... the last government failed to set the terms of the bank bail-out out properly. They were highly negligent in handing over the cash with what seems lik no strings attached. The new government have brought in a levy and I'm confident they won't stop there. We need the banks to succeed so that we get a return on our investment but we also need them to finance business if the economy is to recover.

Most 'bankers' are ordinary working people. Tellers and mortgage advisers etc. They don't get an allowance from the taxpayer, they get a salary from the bank that they have to manage on & they pay income tax on that salary.

I said before that state financial help should be there for people who need it. I do not accept that asking the 'poor and the powerless' to manage that money responsibly is picking on anyone.

How far away are any of us from sleeping on the pavement doorways, just one wrong turn or two and it could be you, me or our dc. Never think that you are safe and sound as their isn't such a thing

"The media must look for months to find these families with 10 children and their 60 inch plasma TVs. They are few and far between, and the cost of supporting them is minimal, and probably less than what we forked out on MPs' expenses for porn movies, bath plugs, home flipping, and kitchen refits"

I like that quote from Claig.

"once everyone has got their allowance/salary/top-up they're supposed to use it responsibly is valid"

what about when the hard-working people with 10 children bailed the bankers out through their taxes. Did the bankers use the allowance that we all paid them responsibly? Did they even bother to invest it back in our industries, so that the people could afford to keep the roofs over their heads, or did they dole it out in bonuses and blow it on corporate expenditure?

They are picking on the poor and powerless, telling us that they don't "deserve" their allowances, but don't mention anything about the far more substantial allowances that we paid the bankers. And if we dare to suggest that the bankers don't deserve these allowances, they tell us that these brainy people intend to leave the country and leave all us unintelligent scroungers to it. Then where will we be? they say. A damn sight better off, is the answer.

It all makes me want to have another baby just to piss people off.

I hope I live long enough to see these eco fascists and people who hate large families lying in their own waste and getting no care in their old age.

Advances in medicine are happening fast, people are living very long and it is all becoming rather costly. These high costs and the longevity was never imagined or prepared for by those who created the NHS. And it has not been prepared for.

The miserable twats who moan about large families will not, in their lifetime, even come close to paying enough into the system to pay for their own old age.

They better hope and pray that the younger generation coming up is very charitable. And that there is a lot of them.

I work hard and support my children and so does my husband. I pay my taxes. I wish they would stop pissing money away on things like Trident and start helping families that are not as lucky as we are.

October 9, 2050
Dear Whinging Eco Fascists,

You may be a 90 year old in need of 24 hour nursing and medical care but the taxes you paid in your life time don't even come close to covering the associated costs. Basic medical and nursing care is more complex and expensive in 2050 than it was when you were working and paying taxes. In the early 21st century families were stopped from having more than two children while the elderly population grew and grew and demanded more and more. Families with more than 2 children were seen as pigs and cut off from help when they fell on hard times.

There is no one to tax to pay for your care. There is no one to take care of you. Young working people these days are outnumbered 40 to one by people like you with incontinance, immobility, and dementia. And they don't owe you a thing. Deal with it. Ha ha ha ha.

So what mechanisms is the government proposing for those who "fall outside of the norm"?

Seems like quite a straightforward policy of punishing those who have the temerity to breed while being on low incomes or unemployed.

What is "the norm" anyway? It goes back to the whole concept of the "deserving poor".

"And you automatically do what Porritt says, do you?"

I don't do anything that Porritt says or that any of his ilk says, because I understand where he is coming from. But he is very influential and he does influence society and many people believe in his "sustainability" arguments.

The main message that once everyone has got their allowance/salary/top-up they're supposed to use it responsibly is valid because it sets expectations. A good social programme should be able to cope with people who fall outside of the norm, emergencies and extreme cases.... the people who already have large families, for example, and then need extra help.

The two are not incompatible.

"No one wants to see a child suffer so why would people bring them into the world with no ability to give them everything they deserve"

this is the message they want us to believe. A child doesn't suffer, just because it doesn't have the latest material gadgets that we all work hard to afford. In the past, we were poor and had large families, but we had community and love and didn't require all the material possessions they tempt us with. They want to restrict our birth, which is why they have made it harder amd harder for us to make a living. They have shipped our jobs abroad and offered us low wage jobs for longer hours, while house prices were artificially boosted by lax credit so that we needed to stretch ourselves ever more. Then just as we climbed on the ladder, they crashed our economy and now intend to cut thousands and thousands of jobs. Then they blame it all on the scroungers. They are having a real good laugh.

I completely agree with you Claig.

When white, rich, older men (Porrit, Prince Charles et al) feel the need to lecture women all over the globe about how many children they should have it makes me want to hurl. It is all about control and keeping us in our place.

There can't be that many families with 10 children who have never worked. I live in Leith (very mixed area) and the biggest family i know of has 4 children. Why are we deciding policy on a couple of freakish exceptions?

Complimentary I have the exact opposite experience. Foriegners only have child and English families have many. It just depends on where you live.

I do not believe in the idea of "deserving poor".

I am convinced that higher living standards and education act as a natural contraceptive anyway. My parents had 15 siblings between them. I am an only child and DS is going to be an only child.

Do you want less poor children? Spend some money on them now, and they will have ambitions and contribute more to society. Sorry for ranting. I'll read the rest of the thread.

I don't understand all this talk of how people ought to take personal responsibility and think before they act, while at the same time saying "of course we have to look after the children".

Of course in theory it would be nice if people were all able to be self sufficient. however in practice some poeple are not. Some people already have large families. The effect of the benefits cap will be huge upheaval, reduction of life chances and increases in terrible deprivation for people who are already struggling. The result will be that the children will suffer, really suffer.

So the ideaology "people on benefits shouldn't have too many children let's cap benefits that'll teach them" simply has the effect of punishing children.

The "take responsibility for yourself" argument is not compatible with any social programs... These positions are at odds. If you want the benefits capped then understand that you are voting to punich children by pushing them into grinding poverty and removing the support networks of their families ie potentially making their home situaitons very difficult. At least be honest with yourselves what you are supporting.

"Chil1234, it's the underlying message of "sustainability" and why Porritt says we should be restricted to having 2 children."

And you automatically do what Porritt says, do you? I think you'll find that people use a lot of criteria when thinking about family size but that Jonathan Porritt's opinion is well down on the list.

People manage to have quite large families on relatively low incomes if they budget right, have family support and happen to live in an area where big houses aren't too expensive.

As I've already said on other threads, I want to move to Denmark!

OrmRenewed, you are right Mrs. Jones then attacks the immigrants. That is what the super rich want. It's called divide and rule, and they have always done it. If people are not attacking each other and getting along fine, then it is the super rich that foment the trouble and start stirring things up in the media and elsewhere, so that it all kicks off. They then sit back and enjoy the show, knowing that nobody is bothering about them.

Is it not a fair statement to say ?not to have children if you can't afford them" .There are people in our society who desperately want children but feel that they are not able to bring them up with everything a child needs. Why is it that people who go out to work have to pay for people to stay at home and pop babies out one after the other expecting society to keep paying and never having to give back to the society they live in? Motherhood is a privilege not a career. I want children but have to progress in my job to be able to give my children everything they need and deserve. Its unfair on the child if the parents feel its ok to keep them in poverty by not being able to provide sufficiently for them. At the moment it is difficult to get a job i understand that I have very little qualifications yet still I try my hardest to get myself into a position where I would be an able parent to support myself and my children. To keep expecting the working public to fund people who are unwilling to contribute to society is ludicrous. The cuts are going to be tough on all of us however in this day and age we have the ability to control our reproduction its nothing to do with sterilising people or eugenics its a question of respect for other people and your children. No one wants to see a child suffer so why would people bring them into the world with no ability to give them everything they deserve which is more unfortunately then love alone. We need to start taking responsibility for ourselves and our own actions.

And then "Mrs Jones" with her 10 kids and plasma TV, attacks the immigrants for being put first on the housing lists (anyone listen to Today this morning?).