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

"However green a lifestyle you lead, every human has a carbon footprint."

this is the green philosophy. Every human is a problem. It is Eton educated elites like Jonathon Porrit and Zac Goldsmith who belive in the "carbon footprint" problem and the "human footprint" problem and the "human" problem. Humans aren't a problem, it is the elites who are a problem. Doom mongers throughout time have argued that we were always over populated. We know that we can grow enough food to save the world if we really wanted to.

Primarily increase from 60mm to 70mm is due to immigration though (i think and wait to be corrected) that the birth rate may have started to rise again.

Therer si a whole world of difference between large families who have happily supported themselves falling on hard times, and folk increasing their families when they are already not in a position to support themselves.

The former are what the welfare state is all about - a fall back position for every one of us.

The later is just stupidity.

it's not a given, either, that children will stay in their country of origin if they are British. plenty will emigrate, especially if things keep going how they are now.

"Population is expected to rise substantially from 62mm to 71mm over the next 20 years"

isn't this rise due to immigration? isn't the birth rate in decline, as they always wanted?

Yes too many old people, not enough young to support them. So we will soon get messages supporting euthanasia and teh "sustainability" crowd will start telling us that the old are no longer sustainable, they are not productive, they are wasting the "planet's" resources, they are the greens' "useless eaters".

complimentary is right, it's not racist to say that foreigners have bigger families.

It's not racist to say that, it's more xenophobic than racist and ignorant and adds nothing to anything

It would be better if we had fewer children really, as SGB says. However green a lifestyle you lead, every human has a carbon footprint. Children grow into adults that work and travel and have more children of their own and so on. Also, the fewer people there are, the more resources there are to share around, and I think the fewer wars there will be around resources. To think that global population growth isn't a problem is sticking your head in the sand IMO.

'I live in a town which is very popular with families and the amount of negative comments directed towards families and children I have heard recently from middle class people in their 50's and 60's is very sad.'

I hand it right back to them, tbh, because if they think I am going to support them to be retired for 40 years and play golf and get more and more expensive health problems when I'm going to get FA and work till I drop, they really have another thing coming.

Some people (me - and i guess claig [not craig btw]) don't want to support trident and are happy to support families that are struggling. Why is your view more important?

I agree and it is depressing.

I have noticed over the last couple of years that there seems to be a growing hatred towards families and children regardless of whether you are rich or poor. People feel resentful that they pay taxes which go towards schools and childrens services etc.

I live in a town which is very popular with families and the amount of negative comments directed towards families and children I have heard recently from middle class people in their 50's and 60's is very sad.

So you support smaller families and less kids, to stop spending your money on scroungers. But, you don't support more immigration to make up the shortfall, which is what SGB and the progressives advocate. There is so much government waste, not only on Trident, but elsewhere. The amount of your taxes paying for plasma TVs for the "feckless" is minimal compared to the waste elsewhere, and we need more children to look after all of us in our old age. The solution the progressives offer is more immigration.

The ONS produce an animated example of how the demograhic structure of the UK changes over the next few decades.

www.statistics.gov.uk/populationestimates/flash_pyramid/UK-pyramid/pyramid6_30.html

I'm not sure of the assumptions that underly the model.

Population is expected to rise substantially from 62mm to 71mm over the next 20 years ... which argues for less children. However, the pyramid becomes increasingly inverted ... which argues for more children to tax to support the aging population.

So the actual problem is too many old people. Anyone seen the film Logan's Run? It depicts a dystopic society in which the maintenance of an equilibrium population requires the death of citizens reaching a particular age. We could start with the House of Lords!

Complimentary - so what difference does it make that they're muslim?! Some muslims have large families, some British have large families - so what difference does it make? What does your 'cousing' have to do with anything?

Sorry Craig.

CAig. I don't misunderstand the message, many support Trident, as they see it as important to defence, what they don't support is getting up every day at 7am to support the neighbors next door.

Prolesworth Of course poor people would have to be helped, you are twisting the question. I don't see why services should be cut in other areas to fund people who are on the dole for years and have larger, and bigger familes. Why cut respite care for disabled children, when Mr. and MRs X need them and theirs looked after? Just encourage the feckless and take away care for the needy? I have worked in these areas for years and I know what happens, when services are cut.
Fanjo If anyones a twat it's you! It is not racist to state the facts, foreigners and in particular 'some' Muslims have more children thus taken up more of the money, NO? If we are on the subject why should hard pressed British people pay for those who have large familes and want a better life in the UK? My cousing lives in the USA and could not get benefits for her or her three children for seven years. It's a good job, as she would no doubt be scrounging from the day she set foot on USA soil! I rest my case.

Out of interest, I just did the benefits calculator using 2 and then 10 kids, as a single mum.

I changed the housing cost from the max for 2 kids to the max for 10 kids, and everything else stayed the same.

For 2 kids, I would get £378 per week.

For 10 kids, I would get £1,011 per week.

Interestingly, if I took part-time work, (assuming two kids) that would pay £90 per week for 15 hours, my actual better off position would be only £19 - hence the benefits trap I guess. I would have an effective rate of payment of just over £1 per hour worked.

"It would be better for people to have no more than two children, really. The problem of an aging population in the west can easily be solved by more immigration, after all. It's also not very good for women's health to have lots and lots of babies."

That is exactly the message that the progressives have always wanted people to believe. It goes hand in hand with the message about scroungers that complimentary believes. SGB's message is intended for progressives and the scrounger message is intended for complimentary, but they are two sides of the same coin.

Shall we just ignore Complimentary? Go back to the Spongers thread, dear.

I don't blame people like complimentary. She is not alone, millions are taken in by the message that it is about their taxes and benefits for scroungers. That is why the message focuses on that, and there are no messages about the billions of our taxes spent on Trident or any other number of wasteful projects. People don't count, they are scroungers, but other government projects are necessary. if people really understood what Porrit was saying and intending, then they wouldn't go along with the scrounger message.

It would be better for people to have no more than two children, really. The problem of an aging population in the west can easily be solved by more immigration, after all. It's also not very good for women's health to have lots and lots of babies.
But this does tend to be fairly self-regulating - the education and empowerment of women leads to smaller families on the whole and the few who are genuinely keen to have lots of DC tend to be balanced out by those who only have one or those who prefer to remain childfree. So I don't like the idea of government coercion to have fewer children - and all this ranting about 'cutting their benefits' is bullshit because, as others have said, you can budget and plan all you like but you still might lose your job and the whole class of jobs you can do. Or one parent might become ill or have an accident that means not only can s/he no longer work but the other parent can't work either because of the demands of caring for the sick/injured one. WHat are people supposed to do in those circumstances - sell their DC? Abandon them?

the 'divide and conquer' policy is really working out for dave and george. well done you!

Pootles2010, the ecological perspective is a lie.

"I can't see many mainstream politicians putting ecological before economical"

unfortunately, I can, that is why people like Porrit were "the government's leading green adviser". It is a long campaign, but they will do it. Who ever thought we would see people congregated outside pubs, shivering and smoking in the cold? Anything is possible, and they will do it.