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!!!

Exactly scarletlilybug.

Why are you connecting it to this family then if you are talking about conditions in the past?

Agree darcy. I don't think anyone's expecting to send the father down the mines or those children up chimneys!!!

But getting one of the lazy fecker parents off their arse and doing a day's work isn't unreasonable.

Bellasformer friend ... those miners were always so grateful to Thatcher for closing down their pits so they could enjoy a life on the dole, weren't they?

?Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction; the others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness.?

(Beveridge, on the founding of the welfare state).

In other words, the welfare state was founded to fight idleness, not to encourage it.

I wasn't connecting it to this family - I was connecting it to the people on this thread about this family who were demanding change, I was connecting it to the sweeping statements about how "wrong" it is.

Scarlet, please don't put words in my mouth - aside from anything else thatcher did not close down mines because she was unhappy
with the working conditions did she.

And to the posters who were talking about the disability issue: the father gave up his job nine years ago, and continued to have more children - there were five before the lad with a disability came along, so it's bollocks to try to make that relevant.

The family are taking the piss and sticking two fingers up at decent hard working people.

Alouiseq
I think a 'quiverful' approach means that every child is a blessing, so no birth control.

Sad that the little boy has EB, trying not to believe DM hype but seems very unfair that they get so many luxuries when neither parent works. Surely if the father worked in a low paid job, they would still get tax credits etc.

Bellasformerfriend, let's put this another way...

I'd like another child... can't really afford it. But since you seem to think it's okay to scrounge, how about you send me... I dunno.... £5 per week, say, so I can give up work and have another kid? I take it you'd be okay with that?

Now I know £5 per week isn't much, but I'm sure you'd have no problem whatsoever rounding up a few like-minded individuals who'd be equally happy to contribute to a fund to alllow a complete stranger like me to give up work (bit beneath me, really!) and live the life I feel I truly deserve.

When you've signed up your eager friends to contribute to this worthy cause, let me know, and I'll pass my bank details over. (Or a cheque would do!). Cheers!

Poor little boy

However it's not so shocking is it I have nowhere near as many children and entitledto.com told me I would net over 40K if I stopped work!

I would also get to stop work and spend more time with my children

If I have read the previous like correctly they have a 25% chance of having another child with EB and have been very lucky that only one of their children has had it already. I can only imagine how painful and difficult that little boys life is and for them to blithely talk about wanting that many more children makes me really angry - has no-one explained the risks to them?

previous link

I don't know how to fix inequality

Here we have a poor family, uneducated, unskilled and multiplying faster than rabbits because it's all they know how to do.

We support them in idleness. For the rest of their lives. A bit of handwringing. Their children grow up with the same feeling of entitlement, without feeling any need to make a positive contribution to society etc

I feel sure that we shouldn't pay any benefits after child 2. That would drive them to working, and taking responsibility for the children they've brought into the world. That's a better answer for the taxpayer.

But it seems a bit harsh.

Scarlet, you are well aware that that is not my point at all and I am well aware that you are deliberatly missing my point.

As it stands I am one of the people who pay for the children in the above article, I would also be paying for yours through increased tax credit etc (assuming you were entitled) so I fail to see what you are driving at?

I do not feel it is ok to scrounge however I do feel it is stupid foolish to demand change of a system without a full working knowledge of all the effects that would have...simples no?

Look, maybe this family are idle and stupid, but the fact remains that many more families would be homeless and starving without the benefit system, and many, many families don't claim what they are entitled to.
And don't forget, all you just-about-managing-on-low-wages types, that your taxes are not just funding a few feckless or crafty families out of millions of honest and desperate benefit recipients, you are also paying for a ton of Royal parasites who are rich in their own right, and how about all those MPs' moats and second homes and Kitkats? It;s not the poor who are keeping the working poor struggling.

(Oh, and whichever dickhead was saying people should 'move to where the jobs are' - if you are on benefits with no income, the state will not fund you to move somewhere else on the offchance of a job, if you are on benefits you don't generally have spare cash for long distance travel for job interviews time after time, and if you have DC then it's not practical to uproot them and try to start again in a place where you don't have family round the corner to help with emergency childcare).

I agree with Bella. If a couple of families get 'more' than they 'deserve' (nebulous concepts at best) so that thousands of other families don't work long hours in unsafe conditions to feed their kids, and hundreds of thousands of children get a decent education and good food and some self respect, I'm all for that.

And I agree with SGB, as well. It's not this family that means you can't afford your third child. It's the CEOs with huge salaries who dodge paying tax, the banks that ratchet up the fees every time they want to squeeze a further profit out of you, the utilities that get sold off by the government so they can hike their prices, the stately homes that are propped up by heritage trusts, I could go on.

Bit of Bible-vashing here.
The 'quiverful reference is from psalm 127

1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.

2 In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat?
for he grants sleep to those he loves.

3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.

5 Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

So, justification for an idle life full of sleep and sons.
If they needed more scriptural backup, there's always the sermon on the mount. The one where Jesus says don't worry, God will provide. Lilies of the field and all that. Followed by 'Judge not lest ye be judged.'
I think it's a great idea to send benefit claims ensuing from lack of contraception to the Vatican or other church preaching the anti-contraception message.

I am with Bella and Tortoise.

This is one family and the DM and Closer have presented them in the worst possible light.

Yes, they are receiving more in benefits than many earn from an honest job.

Yes, he drives a Mercedes (which may or may not be the latest model)

But

Neither the DM nor Closer mentioned that their son has a life threatening condition that needs 24h care. "A skin condition" sounds rather benign doesn't it?

The father ran the London marathon to raise money for Debra, a charity that supports research into EB.

Ok, so they are scroungers. But if we cap child support who do you think would suffer most?

The children, not the adults.

In this country we are extremely lucky to have the welfare state, that catches the unfortunate and the needy and helps them back on their feet. There are always going to be people who "do" the system, but they are the minority. And if we stop the scroungers getting financial assistance, then we also penalise many families who through no fault of their own are in a situation where they need help.

Closer and DM must have been delighted to find this family, just what they need to enrage the masses. Similar to putting people in the stocks and encouraging neighbours to throw rotten fruit at them. The net is full of blogs and reports about this couple. We can safely assume the benefit people will be reviewing their payments.

Agree with SGB - the DM will always find the most extreme cases to report on as it sells papers. This family aren't representative of most. ....But the system does need an overhaul IMO. People DO work the system unfairly and it IS funded by the taxes of working people.

Hear hear MmeLindt.

Or GoblinChild, maybe they could apply 2 Thessalonions 3 verse 10, if somebody doesnt weant to work then they shouldnt eat! Should stop the laziness sharpish, or at least bring the £160 trip to Tescos down

And the 4 presents per child per birthday.

And the average of about £300 per child each Christmas.

...... Jeez, what a joke