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!!!

Isnt the little boy 3? Which means they still have had years of the benefit life style sat on their behinds before he was born. And it is their choice that they will carry this on for years that irks

The boy having EB is a very different subject and no-one begrudges them their help for him, they totally deserve that to support him

& what chance of another child of theirs being born with EB?

is eb hereditary in any way?? no idea,sorry,but if theres even the slightest chance it is....more kids?

no idea if EB is heriditry.

'You don't recieve HB and CTB - it comes off your bill so you pay less.'

Aaaaagh!
You do still receive it!
Just because it goes towards paying your rent and council tax does not mean you don't receive it fgs

not a popular view on mn I know, but I think more benefits should be paid in the same way
energy bills paid
clothing vouchers for children
food allowance at a supermarket

it would prevent families like this wasting £2000 at Christmas and buying expensive games consoles and premium sky subsriptions

Does the "do you begrudge them" crowd seriously think that Wii, Nintendo DS and flatscreen TVs are among life's essentials?

I think if you have one child with EB you do have a far higher chance of having another child with it - and that would put me off if I had 6 or 7 healthy children already!

Erm, has it been established that this little boy does have EB? or is this all based on the fact that someone further back in the thread said she thought it might be?

£160 a week at Tesco with 7 children sounds like pretty impressive budgetting to me.

the boys fund raising page for dEBra he has EB

Clam - misdee linked to a just giving page which confirms the EB.

yes he has EB

It is interesting how the daily mail wins, time and again. This article is "shocking" I agree but the fact is that the system in place is a good system, it is the right thing. There will always be people who test it to extremes and there will always be the Daily Mail and Closer etc to ferret those out and present them to the "honest working Joe" as evidence of how they are being taken for a ride by the "scrounging scum" out there. However, the facts are these, the system we have means that hundreds of thousands of children have lived a life rather than a life of poverty, hundreds of thousands of parents have lived rather than having to take jobs that were so terrible they threatened life and limb.

The people who work today have the benefit system to thank for the working conditions they enjoy because, before benefits, people had to do anything to keep their family alive. Now we have the luxury of saying "No, I will not work like this, I deserve better" and so on. It is far, far too simplistic to look at any isolated case and say "ooh it is all wrong" The knock on effects of any change would be huge and most of us are simply not in a position to fully understand all of them (myself included).

Personally, whilst I do think that planning to have 14 kids is a bit rich, I also think that our ivory towers have become far too comfortable in recent times.

OK. Sorry. I didn't realise that was the same child. Thought it was a general link to the realities of the condition.

There's something obviously wrong with a system which allows a couple of scroungers a net income of around £38k per year (equivalent to around £55k gross - over double the average wage). Plus rent paid.

Meanwhile, benefit payouts (£164bn) exceed income tax recepits (£140 bn). So it is obviously unsustainable.

I've got a great idea, anyone run a business in Anglesey and need some staff you could phone up the job centre and offer the lazy bastards poor sods a job.

hundreds of thousands of parents have lived rather than having to take jobs that were so terrible they threatened life and limb. Now we have the luxury of saying "No, I will not work like this, I deserve better"

Is that a joke?

No darcymum, it was deadly serious, would you like to discuss the improvement in working conditions in recent years?

I agree that we have plenty of crap jobs available but some people (thankfully) do those jobs, do they not "deserve better"?

I think they deserve our respect and not have people on benefits look down their noses at them.

The benefits system has not improved working conditions for people unless I am to thick to understand the link. The law and the unions have improved working conditions. To say that the benefit system has done this is to imply that factories have been left empty while everyone is on JSA so employers have thought "oh, best pull our socks up"

darcymum it would cost the tax payer more in care for this one child than it does in their benefits if they now work. The problem is that if he now works he will need to earn a huge amount of money to meet basic living costs. It says alot about the state of wages and housing costs in this country that you cannot earn enough to meet those costs. I agree they have alot of children though.

So do you think the people in the article said "No, I will not work like this, I deserve better" better than what, McDonald's? That might be a crap job but I don't think its life threatening.

I do get angry when people disrespect others in more 'menial' jobs.

Nothing wrong with earning an honest day's pay, however menial the job.

Sadly, many of the people with menial, poorly paid jobs will nevertheless be paying taxes to fund the "lifestyle" of parasites like these two.

darcymum, just out of interest how long do you think the benefit system has been around? Because I was talking a little further back than McDonalds myself

I agree that Law and Unions have been the major part in improvement but having a beneift system in place has given the whole thing backbone and by life and limb I was thinking more working in mines, working with asbestos without adequate saftey equipment and so on and so forth not slipping on a gerkin!