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?

The women in Philpotts home worked.

This is not about benefits, it has nothing to do with it. That man is either sociopathic or psychopathic. He has attacked and bullied and abused women all his life. He was not on benefits and that is why the women worked, he could not claim because he walked out on work several times, sometimes after violent episodes. His first know attack on a woman (for which he went to prison) - the one he stabbed his ex. 27 times in her bed was when he was in the Army. Did he do it because he had a job? No he did it because he was a fucking psycho!

I cannot believe that anyone can be so daft to think that this awful situation is anything to do with anything else except a warped, psychologically, personality disordered individual. That is the beginning and end of it and using it to bolster debate about the welfare state is disingenuous at best and wholly unethical at worst.

A wealthy man recently shot his wife and child and even his dogs, then blocked the gate to his home with a horse box and flooded his house with heating oil and set light to this. Why did he do it? He was losing his wealth? Maybe, but he did it because he was psychologically disturbed. He had pursued money and wealth possibly to the exclusion of all else and when faced with losing it murdered everyone in his family.

Crazy men revenging themselves that is what it is and this sort of thing can happen in all demographics it is just easier to throw shit at people like the Philpotts.

Doctors are evil, look at Harold Shipman.

aufaniae what I believe is that if a cap is introduced for those yet unborn it will discourage people from having more children than they can feed.

I would introduce, alongside a cap, hot school lunches and breakfasts for those children plus benefits being paid in part in vouchers.

Jenny - you sound horible and ill informed. Most schools hardly even have the facilities nowadays to provide hot meals. Lots and lots of local authorities cannot provide this even when people are prepared to pay.. Nice, all the poor kids getting fed at school. Fuck it just pop them in the work house. FFS

And this would not have helped the Philpott children. They were all well fed. Benefits have nothing to do with this case and the Government should not be allying the issues.

Waffly. Yes that one case neatly illustrates the well known fact that all doctors are evil.

I think that 'benefits' has now been replaced with 'welfare' is possibly political too. Being 'on welfare' is an american term and may garner less sympathy with the British public than describing people as being 'on benefits'. Dunno really it just seems to have recently crept into common usage here and it doesn't sit well with me

The Welfare State and being on welfare are two distinct things jenny

Jennywren45 - I too thought that a cap might be a good thing on the face of the idea: I add in the caveat that I also firmly believed that if a cap to two/three children was introduced that there had to be provision for those who already had more than the cap would allow because shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted would create more problems.

However, I did some research on birth rates in the UK from 1900 to 2000, which obviously includes a time before the benefits system was introduced and a time after the system introduction.

Here are the figures which are illustrated in live births per 1000 UK people:

1900 - 29 live births

1950 - 16 live births

2000 - 12 live births.

Tiffen and Gittens (2004)

If we are going to use the assumption that benefits encourages people to just keep using children as a cash cow and that the limiting or removal of benefits will stop this from happening, how do you explain the above figures?

Considering benefits to be paid in vouchers - are you saying that those on benefits cannot be trusted to spend their money wisely, while those that are not can be trusted? At what point is it acceptable to assume this and thus basically dictate how people can spend their money?

There are already breakfast clubs and free school lunches - some schools also operate a system where those children who are given those free amenities are singled out as being in receipt of them, leaving them open to scorn and derision doled out to them second hand via some of heir peers who have picked up this unpleasant lack of empathy from their thoughtless and sadly socially-uneducated parents. Is this ok?

waffly harold shipman did result in a review of the regulations & monitoring surrounding GPs, especially single practice doctors, like him.

its would have been foolish to suggest we didnt learn from him, like the Phillpotts.

I think what Jenny is saying re. the vouchers is that if it is 'our' money then 'we' should get to decide how they spend it.... it is inferring that people on benefits make poorer choices about things like that and we should be able to over ride and control that for them That is very dodgy ground as far as I am concerned. Scary right wing fantasies.

Pansy - you sound horrible and hysterical.

The phillpot children were not "all well-fed". You were there were you, to check that?

A family relative said that they took one of the children out for a meal who 'hadn't eaten for a week'. They never saw a child eat so fast.

Paying some benefits in food vouchers is desperately needed imo.

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.

Very true. And the desire to have a family comes from a basic human impulse to reproduce. It's not present in everybody but most of us, wherever we are in the world and whatever our circumstances, do feel that fundamental, instinctive need to have children and a family of our own.

It's part of what makes us human and the thought that people who are less fortunate in life should have to forgo something as essential, and fulfilling as having a family is depressing beyond words.

Faster - but what are we to learn from the Philpotts? That the benefit system produces murderers? Or that there are terrible, awful, controlling people in the world and looking at who is controlling those benefits coming into a household could be a way of helping to identify a red flag that could put wheels in motion to try to find out if the household is being controlled by and abusive dangerous individual?

The former is a ridiculous conclusion to make.

The latter a more reasonable thought process...

flamin Considering benefits to be paid in vouchers - are you saying that those on benefits cannot be trusted to spend their money wisely, while those that are not can be trusted? At what point is it acceptable to assume this and thus basically dictate how people can spend their money?

if someone has more DCs than they can provide for, that is the point when the parents lose choices.

And this would not have helped the Philpott children. They were all well fed.

I think that depends on what your definition of well fed is and what reports or witness statements you read.

pansy hurling personal insults simply because you disagree on a political point instantly undermines your argument and has the effect of people refusing to further engage in debate with you ,as I now am. There are many names I could hurl at people who who believe differently from me but I don;t because i am better than that.

Lemmonmuffin - food vouchers to prevent children from being half starved by their feckless parents....a nice idea, but if indeed a parent is feckless they will find a way of turning those vouchers into whatever they want...selling them, using them to buy the best for themselves and failing to provide for their children...you can't stop fecklessness, but you can recognise that people like these are in the minority...

Faster, I'm sorry, could you go into a little more detail? I'm not quite understanding your point at the moment.

Pansy - you sound horrible and hysterical.

flamin - of course you could not stop someone selling the vouchers on but you could put pressure on shops. e.g. a large fine if a shop accepts a voucher without matching photo id.

Yep, the worst and most feckless of parents will do that, no doubt.

But not all. There will be others who would spend cash on drink and fags and other stuff, but with vouchers they can't do that. The kids get fed.

Really lemon? So the parents who wouldn't sell the vouchers (and addiction is a very strong motivator to do just that) wouldn't just swap their vice for another that the vouchers would cover? Food vouchers doesn't jump-start a change in basic psyche...

And again, the kind of people you are talking about are in the minority...

And what about the fact that you are telling people how to spend their money, that you dont' trust them, that you are basically better than them because you somehow aren't on benefits - by the grace of the universe - but because they are they just have to sit back like good little children and do as they are told? How awful. The vast majority of people on benefits are responsible.

Jennywren - what was that you were saying about being "better than that"? You just did exactly the thing you were pulling pansy up about.

I can remember a huge buzz about American-style Workfare programmes in the '90s. Where people, usually single mothers, got benefits for two children and no more. Where they went to work for their benefits rather than that work being made into a job that someone could be employed to do.

It was billed as wonderful there and here but it didn't work, or did it? That's a genuine question. I don't think it did but I don't know. Perhaps someone can say.

The only other thing I'd say for now is that some people do have children without planning to or caring about cost, so threatening not to give them more money will have no impact on their birth rate if that was your intention.

Far more people have children in good times and then fall upon bad times through circumstances that could affect any of us. What do you do about them?

I think that calling people horrible and ill-informed is a pretty feeble way of trying to win an argument. Whatever side of the fence you are on.

And what about the fact that you are telling people how to spend their money, that you dont' trust them

Funny. That's an accusation made at those on the Left when discussing taxation. Interesting that some people adopt it the other way round when discussing benefits or welfare or whatever you want to call it.

Limitedperiod only - honestly I've never thought of taxation that way - that it's the government trying to tell us how to spend our money...but then again I'm not Left wing and find labels extremely unhelpful.

Voters get to choose (well, the majority of them anyway) which taxation system they agree with by voting in a government.

Without taxation though, what do you suggest as an alternative? Do we all individually club together to build our own roads, schools, bridges, parks, schools, health services, waste services, police, firefighting....