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!!!

Go have a cup of tea violet

Yes your point is taken - it IS wrong that people should be able to have child after child with no thought and just expect society to pick up the tab' Just not sure how we address it.

do not see how he was able to give up work NINE years ago, he wouldn't have been entitled to IS as they were married and no one was a carer then, so would have got £60something in Job seekers allowence. I bet he didn't give up work nine years ago...

Part of this pisses me off as someone who has saved and planned for almost seven years to have a second child and even then I will only be able to afford a few weeks maternity leave. I think that is quite a human reaction.

However if the system allows that couple to choose that life, we could choose the life as well. But we don't because most of us recognise it is a shit choice.

I have a disability and could very easily stop at home claiming all sorts of benefits rather than going out to work. I have chosen not to, not because I am a saint but because I recognise that there is no security and little joy to be found in a life on state benefits. I feel sad that they think this is the best life can offer and now they have been thrown to the wolves.

Anyone mentioned sterilisation yet?

FFS, there was around £10.5bn of unclaimed benefits in 2007-8.

Hardly indicative of a society reliant on benefits, is it?

Inexplicably, the DM doesn't run stories about families and pensioners struggling to survive and not claiming benefits

But that doesn't make it ok twinset.

I agree with your pov personally. I would far rather earn my money than rely on handouts. I would hate to raise my children to aspire to a life doing sod all.

But we shouldn't be using the fact that most people wouldn't want to live like that, as any kind of 'justification' of it should we?

It's a huge waste of money. (Unclaimed benefits is an entirely separate issue).

And more importantly, it is a shocking example of how to bring up children, and if we're genuinely concerned about social welfare, then how can anyone think it's ok?

Of course I judge them and I do not defend their choice of living as they do.

But at the same time, changing the benefits system will hurt honest claimants while not really penalising people like them.

They are going to work the system, no matter how strict the rules are.

That is the kind of people they are. If you cut their benefits do you think that he will suddenly decide to get a job?

of course it isn't OK, particularly as I taught in a school where this was the normal family pattern.

I was trying to make the point that as an outsider looking at this couple it is easy to feel some envy. I would love to be able to afford 3 children, I am going to struggle to have a second. It would have been fantastic if I could have had that second baby when I wanted without thinking of the consequences, instead there has been six to seven years of financial and personal planning. I would love to have a baby knowing that I am not going to have to rush back to work, that I could breastfeed on demand. I would love to be able to see every school play, help with homework in the evening without thinking in the back of my head hurry up I have marking to do. With all these thoughts in my mind I think they have what I want but have managed to do it without raising a finger.

But they don't have what I want because if I wanted that lifestyle I could go and get it. But I choose not to as do most of us.

SGB - I was the dickhead that said

See, I don't understand that argument. If you live in an area with no jobs, you look at other areas for jobs and you move. People have always moved to where the work is. Why is it that people feel it's impossible? I've always lived here. I was born here, My family's here...

and?

Of course, it's not a case of move and get a job. There may not be one anywhere! But you've more chance if you understand that maybe you might have to move. Nobody's going to knock on your door and say I built a factory at the end of your road so you can come and work in it.

I know that's going to prompt a barrage of abuse, but it's a genuine pondering. I simply do not understand why people are so attached to a location that they can't look beyond it.

And it can be done.

because I've done it.

I packed up and moved from the north to the south for work.

And I packed up and moved from the south to the north when it all went tits up and I lost everything.

So don't tell me I'm a dickhead for saying there are options beyond your doorstep. There are and it's doable.

I agree MmeLindt, I used the benefits sytem for about two years. I am sure people thought that I was a scrounger worthy of my own Mail article. I even had nice things that I managed to recover from my marriage, most of which were eventually sold.

To be honest I could have gone back to work before I did but I wanted to make a full recovery and go back into the line of work that I was trained for. For a great deal of the time I was on benefits I did voluntary work to pay my way. I then with the help of DLA managed to ease my way into full time work which I have now been doing for a few years. I intend to in my own way pay back every penny that I claimed from the state. I stopped claiming my DLA that I am entitled to about a year ago and just before that we stopped claiming child benefit and tax credits.

I am sure that at the time I was on benefits I could have had a Mail type article written about me showing that I live the high life at the tax payers expense. I know people made comments of a similar nature because I am good at putting on a brave face and getting on with life.

I would like to think that benefits are there if people need them, unfortunately that means some people will take the piss. It is the price you pay for a civilised faor society.

They get more Dla that we get for daughter's Cystic fibrosis and we don't get Carers allowance

I suppose that's true about the leaving everything behind, riven. I think possibly because I don't care about stuff like that, I tend to not place importance on it. I should change how I see that bit, because I guess it does matter to some and just because it doesn't matter to me I shouldn't see it as something that doesn't matter. erm. iyswim.

But the moving costing £1000, I'm surprised at. Never ever (and I've moved countless times) cost me more than £400 - and normally less than £200. Bung your stuff in a van and shift it.

Something needs to be done.

There is just no incentive for some people to try to get off benefits. It says in the article that they declared themselves bankrupt because of £20,000 of catalogue debts. If you owned your own home you'd be stuffed. But if you have nowt, noone can recover nowt. So it pays to make sure you always have nowt.

When dh lost his job he trundled off down to the job centre. Own home? Tick. Any savings? Tick. On yer bike, then. Had we spent everything and were sitting here with games consoles and Sky boxes coming out of our ears we'd have been much better off.

Places where there are jobs often have a death of affordable housing- London for example has plenty of minimum wage jobs, but it is impossible to find affordable family accommodation.

well if they are in social housing its not so easy to just up sticks and move!!

also,harder with a child needing hospital treatment.....its NOT so 'doable' is it??

*death=dearth

We could go back and forth all day. I see it how I see it. I also know that people will do anything, say anything and justify till the cows come home in order to stay within their comfort zone. To avoid change. That's just human nature. But I also know that if people want to do something, they find a way.

well if they dont want to move areas then its up to them.....wether on benefits or not....its their choice.

being on benefits doesnt mean they have to move if they dont want to....nobody does.

and it cant be forced

It certainly can't. Nobody should be dragged from their homes and put to work! That's not the idea at all!

What I am talking about is people changing so that they want something different, something more, for themselves. People not putting up blocks to change "well, I can't do X, Y, Z...because...because..because..." people not limiting themselves. People seeing that they don't have to stay the way they are if that's not in their or their family's best interests. real best interests, not staying within your comfort zone best interests!

And I honestly do know what I am talking about! I do know how hard it is but I do know it's doable.

But imagine then if everyone did it, JustMy- huge swathes of the country would be empty whilst others would be crowded with shanty towns.

It's actually not in the country's best interests for everyone to do it.

Just because you and a few others can and have done it, it doesn't make it a formula for success IYSWIM.

I agree JustMyTwo.

Some people just want to put barriers up because remaining with the status quo is the easy option, rather than pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. And very often, pushing yourself to find the mental strength, pushing yourself to think long term rather than short term, brings all sorts of rewards you couldn't see in the first place.

I had to move out of the area I was brought up because I would never have been able to afford to live there independently. I could have stayed reliant on my parents, and whinged about not being able to find a job/housing etc but I pushed myself to move to a totally new area and got on with my life.

No one ever said life was going to be easy! It's about an attitude of mind to a large degree, glass half full and all that!!

Not true at all.

Some people remain at the 'bottom' of society, because society needs them to be there in order to function.

There are a few who 'pull themselves up', but to hold them up as an example to all is ridiculous. We do not live in a meritocracy.

My god, that's depressing! The country needs people to be stuck in lives with no hope and no pride and no chance of change?

but this doesnt just apply to benefit claimants.....we could ALL better ourselves....

Indeed. Yes.