To think it is ridiculous that a woman with 11 kids is getting a £400,000 house for nowt

[angelos02]

Especially when most working people couldn't never afford to live somewhere costing that much?
Link: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280385/Home-fit-dole-queen-Mother-11-gets-BRAND-NEW-400-000-house-built-council-shes-struggling-current-homes.html

Are we not on plasma goats yet?

Whatever you think of the woman, do you think her children, all 11 of them, bear any responsibility for her life choices?

Are her children responsible for how many siblings they have?

Are her children responsible for her employment history or who their fathers are?

Are her children responsible for the welfare system?

Do her children deserve to live in a warm house in the winter?

The whole article is just sensationalised! Typical DM. I'd rather my tax money is used in this way than be spent on the "conquering" of oil rich countries and killing innocent people.

It sounds like a lot but really it's hard to live on.

I am on disability benefits (only stopped working when the disability got unexpectedly worse due to pregnancy), I am now pregnant again after a contraception failure (not the pill before I am accused of not taking it) and I am terrified of how we will manage on the money that we will get.

DP is being sterilised.

The current chairman of the Daily Mail, Jonathan Harmsworth is a billionaire who pays no taxes in the UK.

Why is hatred being directed at the wrong people? The tax dodgers at the top could pay the benefits bill several times over if they paid their fair share.

you seem to think a child, who continues with a pregnancy having been abused deserves to be condemned - nice :)

Nursery placements (I'm not talking about the 15 hours free for children 3 and over, I mean nursery placements paid for so the parent can study

No that is certainly not standard and in fact the childcare budget was cut by the tories.

White goods maintenance? thats a new one.

It is generous secret you are correct. Plenty of people live quite happily permanently on benefits and can manage to have meals out, days out etc and a decent life. If they didn't, they'd work. It's hardly rocket science.

*childcare budget for students

I didn't ask for a list of benefits, I just want to know which ones "give more of something than is strictly necessary or expected", i.e. are generous. Which is not the same as adequate.

I wonder if it is the size of the house that gets to people? So she gets a big house because she has so many children but a bigger house is simply not an option for private renters or owner occupiers.

I imagine that if the woman had to live in a 3 bedroom house then there would be fewer objections.

Perhaps the answer is for council houses to be no bigger than 3 bedrooms?

Auntmaud you talk nonsense.

there are not enough jobs in the UK for every unemployed person - or are you ignoring that because it's a 'Guardian' link :)

this is whose pockets you are lining when you buy the mail/click on the links to the mail.

Maintenance for all white goods if you live in a council property? I've never even heard of that before. I've lived in a lot of places and known a lot of people on benefits, and I have never encountered anyone who gets maintenance for white goods. The vast majority have to rely on donation, buying second hand, buying new on credit, or, in emergency situations, applying for a crisis loan that has to be paid back.

I actually think maintenance payments for white goods is a good idea, because it's things like that going wrong that can push people on benefits and other low incomes into a cycle of debt, and that benefits only the likes of Wonga, Bright House and Provident.

Benefits are adequate for day-to-day living expenses, but it's the extras that screw people up, such as when the kids need a new coat and shoes in the same month, or the fridge stops working. Of course, the longer you're on benefits, the greater the likelihood of that happening.

bet he has a whole room full of goats

gordy you assume, naively at best, that every unemployed person wants a job.

well the ones I work with do

but keep dodging the question

"you seem to think a child, who continues with a pregnancy having been abused deserves to be condemned"

That wasn't to me was it?

In broad terms, in the last 70 years haven,t successive governemnts made
an absolute ballsup of housing policy.?

Gosh akiss that article isn't in the slightest bit hysterical .

and it's nothing to do with me 'belief' it's an answer to your assertion that everyone should get a job or be forced into slavery community work

how do you propose people get jobs that don't exist?

I have to ask. Jut how many of these families to people think there actually are, in reality? Does anyone honestly think it's common enough to have even a slight bearing on the national economy?

Compare the cost of this tiny tiny minority to, say, MP's expenses, tax avoidance, wind farms.....

It really is the biggest of non-issues.

It's simply a nice easy way to stir things up and detract from the fact that every day everyone except the very rich is getting poorer. How can people be so blind to how they are being played? It genuinely frightens me and I honestly don't know where it's going to end.

my not me!

Schro - I really hope it works out for you. Sounds incredibly difficult and congratulations on the pregnancy :)

Amber - Those benefits will vary of course, it depends how many children you have. The more children you have, the more you will be entitled to. The nursery placement is certainly what three of my friends have: their toddlers (under the age of 3 so not the free hours) have 3 days at nursery paid for by the local council so they can go to college. I'd have no real problem with this if it wasn't for the fact this is the third time in one case they have tried a college course.

It's like someone said over the page - being concerned about the amount of money spent on welfare payments does not make you some sort of fascist who wants to implement forced sterilisation and introduce the workhouse It concerns me, and I used to be very liberal.

No Schro