If you're an unemployed waster then you should have a vasectomy!!!

[sirlee66]

Ben Bradley, an MP, wrote in a blogpost, 6 years ago, that the country would be soon “drowning in a vast sea of unemployed wasters” if workless families had four or five children while others limited themselves to one or two.
This is what he said:

''It’s horrendous that there are families out there that can make vastly more than the average wage, (or in some cases more than a bloody good wage) just because they have 10 kids. Sorry but how many children you have is a choice; if you can’t afford them, stop having them! Vasectomies are free.

There are hundreds of families in the UK who earn over £60,000 in benefits without lifting a finger because they have so many kids (and for the rest of us that’s a wage of over £90,000 before tax!).

People have to take responsibility for their own lives, and if they are struggling but working hard to help themselves then they should get help. But if they choose to have 10 kids they should take responsibility for that choice and look after them, not expect everyone else to foot the bill!

Families who have never worked a day in their lives having 4 or 5 kids and the rest of us having 1 or 2 means it’s not long before we’re drowning in a vast sea of unemployed wasters that we pay to keep!''

So What to do you think? Do you agree with Ben Bradley or do you think he is being unreasonable?

Sure, what could go wrong?

I find this idea that people who are on benefits are rich bizarre. Having been on benefits myself, I can assure you that my income now I'm working is almost double what it was on benefits. I wouldn't go back to that life if I could help it.

People with multiple DC have more mouths to feed and clothe. I only have one DS and he costs me a fortune, no idea how I'd cope with more.

I actually find it hard to believe that women are popping out 5 babies one after the other. Children are hardwork, and being a mother in itself means that you are contributing to society.

I think as another poster put people think this but wouldn’t say it.

People have to take responsibility for their own lives, and if they are struggling but working hard to help themselves then they should get help. But if they choose to have 10 kids they should take responsibility for that choice and look after them, not expect everyone else to foot the bill!

Definitely Agree with this point

I think this kind of thing is a far bigger drain on society, but we keep moaning about those poor people, don’t we?

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/business/winners-carillion-scandal-making-300m-government-contractors-collapse/15/01/

I can't see one word in that statement in the OP's first post which I could rationally disagree with.

He wasn't an MP then.

But it's a warning to every youngster who aspires to any position of responsibility that every mortal thing thing they say online might bite them decades later. Not sure that that's such a good thing.

"Vasectomies are free."

Not any more, not in several areas:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-41913680

Obviously recommending vasectomies is not the answer, but I do have a certain sympathy with his comments. I'd love a big family, but know that 2 children is the max I can ever afford on my salary. Why should other people have to pay for my children?

Second point - his blog post was from 6 YEARS AGO. Long before he became an MP, and when he was still a snotty nosed student. Rather than screaming for his and Theresa May's blood, perhaps people could realise that he has now grown up and this does not necessarily represent his current view? I don't think there's a single person in this country who hasn't made a comment in the past that they'd cringe about now.

There are over 75 million people in the UK. I am not going to get worked up about a few hundred families

If Labour MP Jared O'Mara can get away with all the offensive homophobic, sexist and racist rubbish he said in the past, surely this guy should also be forgiven for anything he says which is considered offensive/controversial.

@andrewofgg Rod Liddell said something very similar in last week's Speccie

I'd love a big family, but know that 2 children is the max I can ever afford on my salary

Until you get ill, partner leaves you or some other reason why you've had to give up your job/can't bring in the pennies anymore.

No child deserves to live in poverty because of it’s parents decisions.

Aside from the other aspects of his blog post, I both agree and disagree with this.

We essentially have a benefit system that attempts to provide adequately for all children, regardless of their parent's ability or effort (at least materially, and emotionally by social care, and educationally, medically).

That means there is little to no impact on a child (in terms of what benefits the household gets) for the parental decisions made.

On one end of the spectrum, we could have an able-bodied parent couple of several children who had adequate income but lost their jobs through no fault of their own (redundancy, maternal discrimination, closure of the business, whatever). They could be desperate to find work, and do all the things within their power to achieve that. They're entitled to the same level of benefits as someone who puts in zero effort, games the system, and hasn't contributed anywhere near enough to pay for their own way in the system, never mind any offspring of their own.

The fact that we based our family benefits with a focus on the child rather than the parent is one of the greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses of our welfare system.

By ensuring that it's designed to prevent the most extreme poverty in every child's life, it essentially means that no parent will ever be truly destitute.

Compare that with how (say) a single, male, able-bodied worker who similarly has no work through no fault of his own, and it's quite a different story.

Unfortunately, I don't have an easy solution to all of this - any attempt to reform the system invariable ends up negatively impacting the children involved.

Perhaps a more pertinent thing to explore would be to consider what outcome welfare should be targeting over the longer term (not just focusing on short-term material/social needs).

I broadly agree about his points about family size, and having children you can't provide for. As a pp said, I suspect most people do agree with that but roughly half of us think it prudent to pretend to be aghast at the thought of limiting family size to your means.

Clearly it's a benefits cutting agenda which many people truly do oppose, often with good personal reason. But taking responsibility for the size of your family seems reasonable to me.

Child benefit has been capped, so probably quite a few of those families have been split up and are in care instead.
That costs the taxpayer hundreds of pounds per week per child. and it damages the childrens prospects, because our care system lets kids down.

The change was not retrospective, so no families can have been split up by it being introduced.

I was one of 8 and had a father who was in and out of work. I wonder what he would have liked to have happen to me?
6 of us went to university and all except me ( I'm a sahm but husband works) have always worked so he is wrong in assuming parents on benefits equals child on benefits.

He can shit off.
I'm a full time Carer for my children out of necessity. Technically unemployed. Mind you I have been sterilised.

I agree. I also think benefits should be used as a temporary, last resort situation and people should NOT intentionally have more children when they are already being supported by tax payers. It's disgusting.

I know first hand of lots of families who continue to reproduce despite not working and having no intention to. Where are these people's morals???

@Timeforanamochango my 'free upgrade' has double the rent of the previous house we had.

How is that free?

Obviously this guy is a massive dickhead and his comments are abhorrent.

BUT

It is quite a refreshing change from the 'single mothers should close their legs/get sterilised' rhetoric that you normally get around this issue, to hear someone calling for men to take responsibility for a change!

To an outsider I'm an unemployed benefits bum but unless you know circumstances mouths should be ke0t shut

I totally agree with he said and I also worked with people claiming benefits, it's not as uncommon as people on here would like to believe
If you can't or won't work, stop having kids and expecting everyone else to pay for them
I've seen lots of previously unemployed people now in work, through their own choice, not because the job centre forced them too, but because they knew they'd be worse off under UC so they have looked for a job
They have told me this themselves, why couldn't they have done that before?

Excellent post @BeHappyMummy

Also another factor is disability coming into the family that didn't exist prior to the arrival of kids.