Yes it's the DM, yes it's about a large family on benefits, but surely even if only half of it is true it's shocking!

[StrawberriesAndCherries]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265508/Peter-Davey-gets-42-000-benefits-year-drives-Mercedes.html

Are they wrong to get what they are entitled to?

42K a year though - I must be going wrong somewhere!!!

It's getting really tiresome hearing the word 'jealous' used on this thread. No one in their right mind would be jealous of that family. It doesn't mean that what they are doing is ok though. Surely it is fairly simple to grasp that there are sound reasons why people think it's wrong that have absolutely nothing to do with envy?

I'm sure my life is a million times better than that family's. It doesn't stop me objecting to the way they behave though, for all of the above reasons - not least because they are taking resources from the genuinely needy, and also I feel sorry for those poor children being raised in a household that seems to place its values on how many kids they can churn out, how much they spend on presents, catalogue shite and a sky tv package. They deserve better if nothing else.

I think there is a lot of us that feel that benefits need to be there as a safety net, but not a lifestyle choice.

JK Rowling writing about being on benefits.

Obviously she was a different type of person to the scroungers in the DM, willing, eager even, to work.

But without the "safety net" of the welfare state, she would have had a lot more hardship than she already faced.

Regardless of whether they're gaming the system, they want to have another seven children. Each one of those children has a 50% chance of being a carrier for EB, a 25% chance of suffering from the full blown disease.

So, to satisfy their desire for a big family (however they choose to support them, whether by working or claiming), they're going to condemn each one of those potential children to a 1 in 4 chance of having a life tortured by pain, and an early death.

I fully believe in the welfare state. I don't believe in torturing children to prove how fertile you are. Cunts, both of them.

I just don't understand how people think we can go on affording this. ALL our income tax is spent on paying benefits - and then some. Even if you take any kind of moral, political or emotional aspect out of the picture, how are we going to finance outgoings at this level? People talk about 'unclaimed benefits' as if that proves that there are hidden buckets of money somewhere - but that's £10 billion compared to £186 billion!

I have no wish to return to Victorian England or leave the very poorest and most vulnerable members of society without support, but we have to have a radical overhaul of the benefit system.

Violet I am a rational some would even say intelligent person, I had a pang of jealousy reading about this couple. As I said before it has taken me seven years to get myself into a position to have a child. I will then have to accept that it will be my last one even though I desperately want more. My jealousy was irrational but it was there.

Maybe I am just odd or eaten up with envy.

twinset - you are one of the most self aware, considered and insightful person who posts on MN. (don't mean to sound grovelly but you really are!)

You may have felt a twinge of jealousy because of your very specific circumstances - you've waited a long time to be able to afford another child and I think it's entirely natural for you to feel a touch of 'Bloody hell. Why don't we all just jack in working and expect someone else to foot the bill'.

But underneath that , you know your life and prospects (and those of your child and any future child) are far brighter than those of the children in that family.

I just wanted to mention the jealousy issue because I doubt its crossed the mind of most people on here. I have had all my children, I wouldn't want 8 even if the tax payer was funding the bloody lot of them, neither do I aspire to a sky tv package or excessive christmas presents. Yet it seems to be latched onto by a few posters who think that anyone who criticises the family must be deeply envious of them. Er.... no.

I do know that my prospects are much brighter when I sit back and think about it. But jealousy is an emotional thing, so when you flick through the Mail you do think as you say,

"'Bloody hell. Why don't we all just jack in working and expect someone else to foot the bill'.

That is the exact response the Mail wants. For many many people having a child is not easy, children are almost becoming a luxury.

Thanks for the compliments though, I know you don't give them out often!

Will your opinion of me dip if I admit we have a sky package ( I think it may even be the top one)

Ooh is it a £50 a month one like that family? Go on.... it is, isn't it?

I am so flash with the cash I don't even know. I think it is the top one, so maybe.

In our defence I live in the middle of nowhere and it is the most reliable way to get television. The disk was here when we moved in - honest.

What boggles me is, yes society needs some reform, but why do so many people think that the way to achieve that reform is to further bash the ones in the most vulnerable categories? Benefit scroungers and illegal immigrants, oh it's all their fault that large corporations have been steadily driving down wages and reducing job security and removing any prospects of advancement for the workforce they regard as a serf class...

Violet, since twinset has just said that she does feel a pang of jealousy, and that was, again, only one of many reasons I speculated on for people's reaction to this thread, can you perhaps accept that I have in fact read the thread?

And several posters did say it boiled their blood because there they were, feeling as if they couldn't afford a further child despite desperately wanting one, and here this family was with loads.

• a civilised society operates on the basis of supporting the genuinely needy. It operates on give and take. This family are clearly irresponsible and only want to take. In their own words, they 'don't care' that the state is funding their lifestyle choice. They are complaining about their lot, and expect a bigger house so they can have up to 14 children.

Yes, of course society operates that way. But I think give and take can be applied more broadly than in one family. I give more than I take, they take more than they give, it evens out and all our children are fed and clothed. Result!

• there are limited resources to go around. That is a fact. Even if you raise taxes, there is still a ceiling on resources available. Therefore, it is not reasonable to use resources just because you can't be bothered to work, or feel you have some kind of entitlement to get what you want.

Right. Is this not what I was saying here: "Those of you who are angry at this family, it's because you don't want your taxpayer money going to families you deem undeserving?

But I don't see a lot of threads about CEOs and MPs, however much it's claimed that you know that's a problem too.

And there's always the sticky problem that every loophole you close strangles a whole lot of genuinely needy people"

Again, do you actually want welfare reform? Do you want to cut this family off from their money? Or do you just want to rail against the fact that they're 'taking advantage' of the system?

• the children in this family are being raised with a shocking example of how civilised society functions. They are being raised to have no sense of social responsibility, just entitlement. For anyone with a genuine concern with social welfare and wellbeing, that should be shocking.

Sure. Are you also angry at rich children who are brought up to assume that they will walk into jobs based on their surnames, have staff, marry well and be respected throughout their lives because of Who They Are? I don't see a lot of threads about the entitlement issues of the aristocracy.

• the above points apply equally to anyone else who is taking the piss out of the system, whether they are bank chiefs/MPs/unemployed parents with countless children.

I agree. But again, we don't actually see any threads about it! All these emotive threads are about the poor and the disadvantaged who are dragging down the slightly-less-poor and disadvantaged. Why do you think that is?

I don't think it is so much the fact that people are getting money for a disabled child, it is more the stinky attitude they have. That over-eager sense of entitlement, greedy, selfish me-me-me mentality.

I have neighbours who get about £320+ per week, I know this because the mother gave me a break down of everything they claim. They also have a motability car.

Again, those with a heart would look at the fact they have a disabled child and say that fair enough go ahead and live off benefits. But the father is just about to go bankrupt for the second time due to a similar circumstance with catalogues and credit cards (who gives these people credit cards!) The mother has been bankrupt four times - apparently it is "easy enough" to do. The mother has just returned from 3 weeks in Australia, they were in Portugal last year and Spain the year before.

So it really does pay to be on benefits, the more you get the better off you are. I spent 2 years on income support when I became a lone parent, I was made to feel (or maybe made myself feel) like a scrounger. As soon as I started work - earning less than £8k per year I lost housing benefit, council tax benefit etc.

This country is so unfair it makes me sick.

I seem to remember plenty of threads about greedy bank chiefs and money grabbing MPs when that hit the headlines - and MNers were pretty unanimous in their contempt for them. I certainly remember posting on some!

However, if people don't feel there are enough.... they are perfectly welcome to start their own. Always seems a bit of a strange argument to say 'Why don't we see a thread about XXXX....?' - Well, start one!

Oh, I wasn't saying I don't feel there's enough. I'm just saying that generally speaking, there appears to be more outrage here and in the general community about poor people getting a few $100 exta than about banks breaking usury laws to increase profits to shareholders.

So 'why aren't there' was rhetorical, not a plea for more. Me, I'm all outraged out and off for a glass of wine.

Fundamentally that family disgust me with their attitude that they'll just keep on taking from everybody else. Particularly when so many of the rest of us do genuinely worry about how we can afford the family we have and regret that we can't afford to have more children. In the end they're taking the p*ss out of us and we let them do it.

However......

As people have said there will be some people who will abuse and cheat any benefits system that we have.

I would rather read the occasional story like this than see genuinely needy families go unsupported and the destitute starving.

Basically seeing people like them leech off of people like me is the additional price that I accept that I pay alongside my hefty tax bill so that we do offer that support. It's a bit like the presumption of innocence under law, bad things happen with it and people abuse it but it's far better than the alternative.

So let's treat that family with the contempt that they deserve but refuse to accord them with enough influence so as to make them abandon our principles.

I am that people actually trust the DM to accurately reflect this family's attitude to anything.

It is no accident that people's ire is directed at the poorest and most vulnerable among us. We are all conditioned to do so- after all, if those of us dissatisfied with our lot were to collectively direct our anger at those who really have everything yet do nothing and live off taxpayer's money, there would be revolution. Naturally, nobody in the upper echelons of society wants this, so articles such as this pour forth to ensure that all the anger is safely directed at people with no power.

I find it a bit disappointing that people are so quick to swallow the bait TBH.

The skin condition that they refer is probably Epidermolysis bullosa (EB). It is very serious and painful and disabling. Don't google it if you don't want to read about children suffering, the condition can fuse fingers and toes due to the fragility of the skin and the scar tissue build up.

www.debra.org.uk/what-is-eb.html

It is the fact that the DM refers to this as a 'skin condition' which makes me feel that they have tried to underplay the childs illness to make the family seem worse. Makes me smell a rat a bit on the whole article really.

Yes I believe so

It can affect all the internal membranes so digestion, eating and excreting can all be affected and very painful. It must be hard for that little chap.

"Naturally, nobody in the upper echelons of society wants this, so articles such as this pour forth to ensure that all the anger is safely directed at people with no power."

We've also seen plenty of articles generating anger at those with power recently such as the whole MP's expenses thing.

If the DM is up to anything "clever" it isn't to protect the "upper echelons" but rather to damn the Labour Government and support the Tory party.

I'm sure the average MNer is bright enough to understand how the DM operates!

They aren't going to use the term Epidermolysis bullosa because the average DM reader probably wouldn't be able to read it, never mind understand it.

Doesn't change the principles discussed on this thread, or the facts about the family's finances, their history of bankruptcy, or their aspiration to have 14 kids. With the risk of further EB in the family that's a truly frightening thought quite aside from the fact that they can't support their existing children.