I'm disgusted by Osbourne jumping on the Phillpott bandwagon created by the DM

[aufaniae]

So, yesterday there was outrage after the pictures of dead children were used in the most cynical way by the Daily Mail to sell the idea that welfare "scroungers" are evil, with Phillpott branded a "vile product" of the benefit system by the DM.

What's our government's response today?

George Osborne, when asked about the claims, said a debate was needed about whether the state should "subsidise lifestyles like that". link

To add insult to injury, he was visiting Derby when he said this (which is where the children lived and died).

How fucking insensitive can you get?

I would agree about the illegal war. Don't try to change this issue. Declaring that I think Tories are cunts does not mean I support Labour. I am a crest fallen LibDem as it goes but to the left rather than the right.

after being asked a specific question by a journalist........

ahh the innocence. How do you think he found himself there in that place on that day giving that speech - who briefs journalists????????? He should have declined to answer... said that it was impossible and inappropriate to ally this case with the benefits debate. He should have risen above it and not used it. It was a set up and it turns my stomach.

Surely you all know that all political parties have accounts with social media stuff to monitor and moderate opinions.

My point is as it was, please do not vote for people who would so blatantly jump on this distressing story to make their point. It is manipulative and using the horrible lives and deaths of these children as political fodder.

The suggestion of a cap on benefits is either inhumane or ill thought out. I say this because:

1. The fact that countries with more limited welfare systems have children living on the streets, begging and in some cases starving shows that lack of benefits do not stop or limit people having children. It will put some people off but not all.
2. Once the children are born, as a society we then have two choices. We either allow them to live below the breadline with limited food and clothing (with adults who by having large numbers of children they cant afford have demonstrated that they will put themselves first) and hope that someone kinder than us ie charities will help them a bit. Many of those children will be underfed and badly cared for. At worst they may end up streetchildren stealing and begging to survive. OR we maybe take some of them into care at a huge annual cost and with the emotional damage and future likelihood of getting involved in crime that goes with that. I can't see a lot of benefit to society there.

I am fortunate enough to be in a position to pay a lot of tax. And I am proud and happy to do so (and indeed to pay more) to avoid being part of a society that would allow children to suffer because of their parents' wrongs. Never mind higher tax payers leaving because they have to pay more tax. I will leave if I find I am part of a society that is prepared to abandon its children.

pansy - thanks for your views on journalists, but I have a number of close and long term friends who are journalists/subs who work for the FT, Telegraph, Guardian, Times etc.

so strangely enough, I know they like to stir the shit. it is their job to do so.

compie And I am proud and happy to do so (and indeed to pay more) to avoid being part of a society that would allow children to suffer because of their parents' wrongs.

you think we don't allow children to suffer at the moment?

Sadly, I think we probably do.

Chompiemum absolutely agreed with you that ultimately the reforms will punish children. These very very large and sometimes dysfunctional families (and being large and dysfunctional do not go hand in hand as they would have us believe) are the exception and not the rule and I cannot imagine what is going to happen when all the changes kick in. The changes have also been made deliberately alarming and difficult to understand so perhaps people with less engagement and understanding can access help. Remember how complex the proportional representation debate and vote was made? A simple concept made dreadfully confusing quite deliberately to illicit the result required and to make people feel disempowered.

Agree with FasterStronger that children do suffer at the moment but making people poorer to teach them a lesson (because it has nothing to do with finances and everything to do about controlling the sort of people allowed to reproduce) is not going to help those most in need is it?

We too are higher rate tax payers and happy to contribute because we know that the overwhelming majority of people claiming are in need and we need to help one another to support them and their families to make sure they are provided for. People's willingness to vilify people already in desperate situations just because they are needy in all sorts of ways makes us all poorer.

PR is a horrible old game when used for such ends and I am appalled that people buy into it so much when it is all a media manipulation to control how we think about others in our society. PR is a dark art (I say this as someone married to a spin doctor) when used like this.

I have 5 children and seriously what would happen to us if something dreadful happened? We could survive for sometime of course we have plenty of money now but ultimately to be spurned and judged if God help us we were ever in need is unimaginable. I have two disabled children.... we are doing our best to prepare financially for them but will they, in time, be seen as less? as an underclass?

hideous hideous man, trying to score political points out of this terrible tragedy

No connection. A evil bastard is a evil bastard, whether in politics or the press "on benefits" or earning 200k a year.

"I support the tories as do millions of ordinary people who are sick to the back teeth of working longer and harder for less"

Seriously? Seriously? PMSL!!!

You support the Tories because you are sick of working longer and harder for less?!!

Under the Tories, the gap between rich and poor will increase. The policies they are enacting how will drive down wages, increase job insecurity, make the cost of living higher for all of us.

You are being manipulated, can't you see that?

PhilPott did not "earn" £50K (or whatever). That money was mostly for his children and their mothers, to feed clothe and house them, it was not his! That he stole it from their mothers (along with their wages - are you aware they worked btw?) is criminal and despicable.

To say he was being paid £50K is a gross misrepresentation.

And if you think children in large families on benefits shouldn't receive so much money, please tell me what you think should happen to children for whom there is no money? Should they starve, beg, be pimped out, be forcibly removed from their parents? Should we build workhouses? Seriously, what's your alternative?

That post was for jennywren btw

jennywren45 you seem like a caring person, I am dismayed you can't see the wood for the trees.

The reason there is so much vitriol aimed at the Tories is that they are - for example - bringing policies which will lead to children in this country literally starving and being made homeless.

This isn't an exaggeration, it's a fair assessment of the impact of their policies. People are being told to magic up jobs and money to pay for "spare rooms" which aren't actually spare. Those who can't find jobs (which will be many as there are simply not enough jobs for everyone) or find a cheaper place to move to (again the maths is simple - there are not enough smaller places for everyone, not by a long way) will be left with not enough money to afford to live. Many will end up homeless and totally destitute.
That these policies disproportionately affect disabled people is another kick in the teeth from a party who claimed to have found compassion and caring, but who obviously don't know the meaning of the words.

Jenny, please open your eyes!

So, just the usual smoke and mirrors tactic then...how very predictable. I am non-plussed and YANBU.

What we have to remember here is that reducing benefits would have probably made the short and difficult lives of those six innocent children even worse.

Yes ChompieMum I agree - in PR terms this is called ambulance chasing

Well we shall see what kind of support there is for Tory reform at the next election. I voted Labour last time but I doubt if I will be next time. And I am reluctant to vote for LD because of the student loan u-turn although it didn't affect my family but I know quite a lot of people annoyed about it.

TBH it's exactly what I would expect from George Osborne.

I think he's very clever; he's using the disgust at Philpott as a way of trying to pretend that his dismantling of the welfare state is justified.

Like somehow, violent misogynist abusers won't exist once we no longer have a safety net.

Yes Basil but seriously so many people buy into it, it amazes me.... and makes me a bit sad. Flinging shit at other people does not help anyone. Making the divide between rich and poor even wider, making even harder to attain even a basic standard of life particularly when children are involved is verging on criminal. The Tories nearly managed to dismantle the NHS the last time they were in, this is because it does not affect them and their demographic group.... spitting on poor people and making them poorer just for having the audacity to exist is dreadful. Making that gap wider will only serve to disenfranchise them more, because what is the point if you can never get out of where you are.

My husband and I are both from council estate beginnings and now both educated and higher rate tax payers and I think productive compassionate member of society, if our parents were unable to find work (as now people genuinely struggle to do) or find work so low paid they can barely exist how is anyone ever meant to be 'socially mobile'. If he and I for instance had had to borrow 28k to go to uni it would not have happened.... Our Dads didn't even earn that sort of money in those days. Are we all now consigned to being born into and dying just where we started eking out pitiful existences to make richer people feel better about how good they are? (Remember the American social model is built on this, why do you think they don't want the poor to have heath care?)

Making people poorer will not help the likes of the Philpotts, in fact I would imagine it could only make things worse for them. Osborne should hang his horrible Tory head in shame for even aligning the issues together. Philpott killed his family because he was a mentally ill, controlling monster who could just have easily been a middle class man with a job.

Agree with pansy .
Whetehr or not you think benefits should be capped or not is irrelevant - the Philpott case is not about benefits and any decent politcian/person should say this.
However the mail has succeeded in making it about benefits- just look at the debate here- so they have hijacked the agenda

I disagree entirely pansy but that's the beauty of our political system.

I believe in self reliance, responsibility and helping those who help themselves or those who genuinely can't and luckily for me teh current Govt. shares my views..

Giving more money to people so that they are better off not working doesn't help children, it condemns them to a half life of semi poverty trapped on Welfare.
Do you really believe the Philpotts fed their children good food? Nourished them? Expanded their lives and generally enriched them on their almost £100K a year? Do you?

All throwing money at the Philpott's did was encourage reckless fathering, drunkeness, debauchery and drugs.

Osborne out. Am disgusted both by his inhumanity and his ineptitude.

Inhumanity? Really?
Saying we need a discussion about welfare lifestyles is inhumane?

What on earth did you make of Blair then!

jenny people here are not nec arguing that the benefits system is right and that it doesn't need looking at, what they are arguing is that the tories are entirely wrong and yes inhumane to use the Philpott case as a reason why the benefits system needs to be looked at.

There are two huge and very distinct issues here. Using one as an illustration of the ills of the other is very wrong. As others have said Mick Philpott didn't kill because he had loads of benefits, he killed despite having loads of benefits.

btw when did the benefits system suddenly become Welfare?

It's always been the Welfare state since inception.
The tories are not using the Philpott case, Osborne was put on the spot and he said that it needed looking at . he was also very clear that Philpott and Philpott alone was responsible for his behaviour.

We are all going round in circles here. What the Lefty are afraid of is that this has ignited debate and actually, many, many people are supporting the tories on welfare reform and the Philpott case has simply fed into that. The left know that most ordinary people support reform and that scares them, as it rightly should.

when did the benefits system suddenly become Welfare?

That's a good point. The two terms are interchangeable now but they're different things.

Wonder when that happened?

Jenny you've ignored my question, perhaps you missed it? I'm curious to know your answer:

If you think children in large families on benefits shouldn't receive so much money, please tell me what you think should happen to children for whom there is no money? Should they starve, beg, be pimped out, be forcibly removed from their parents? Should we build workhouses? Seriously, what's your alternative?