Oh sure, you can always find a small number of of individuals who are apparently shafting the system - I say apparently because upon closer inspection you see that the individual concerned is renting private accommodation because her local authority is unable to find her a suitable home - thats your first problem right there.

The father of six of her children is allegedly not paying her any child support at all - thats your second problem right there.

Look at the breakdown of her "benefits" and you'll see that there is nothing there that could be perceived as "scrounging" or "shirking", indeed if she got her act together and worked for a small number of hours a week she'd probably find that she'd qualify for Working Tax Credits too.

But of course its just so much simpler when you can vilify the individual person instead and use words like "hardworking good tenants" to turn groups against each other.

Unfortunately there are many who are too lazy or stupid to attempt to strip off the lacquered veneers.
They are content at being outraged without any intention of digging or delving deeper, it just doesn't suit them.
Sad but very true.

And unfortunately the lazy and stupid include local councilors and MP's too - aided and abetted by newspaper editors.

Indeed.
I'm by no means limiting it to the hard of thinking on the Sin Bin.

Just to update you all – Barry has not further replied to my tweeted questions, since responding with a curt 'yes' to my question of whether he knoew that 80% plus of all housing benefit is paid to people who are in work.

I think you'll find it's the good ol" British taxpayer who is paying the rent on this six bedroomed property, not this workshy, but extremely fertile individual. I would hope that her local council could offer a perfectly adequate 4 bedroomed house from their local stock, or provide an explanation as to why she hasn't been offered one.



More of a CSA problem I would think.



So, in Chicken World, reaching the age of 37 without contributing anything into the system via a job, is not considered as scrounging or shirking? How odd. I'll admit, with seven kids she hasn't neglected that side of her contribution to british society, but are you seriously suggesting there is any danger of her being vertical long enough to to hold down a job? What would you have to earn to bring home a similar salary that matched her benefits, or bettered them to provide a bit of encouragement? 45k....50K? And her qualifications for that, is what?



Vilify is a tad emotive, but in any case, why should those hardworking good tenants who make up 80 percent of claimants, not feel ticked off when they read about cases like above? Or hear the banal nonsense quoted in defence of the current benefit set up?

Have you met her? If not, how do you know she is "workshy"? Just because she hasn't worked in 20 years doesn't imply she is.



So still a problem though



In Rumpel World, not knowing the first thing about someone appears to give you a licence to describe someone as shirking or scrounging. Are you a Tory Minister by any chance?



I assume you've done a poll of these 80% of tenants to confirm they are hardworking and are ticked off by this?

Personal responsibility is so passé, yes?

I think you'll find that I'm perfectly aware of that, which is why I highlighted the fact and mentioned that it appears in the breakdown of her monthly payment, the fact that the council can't provide housing for her is not unusual, the fact that they then have to resort to private accommodation, more than likely at an inflated rate, is also not unusual.

If the facts of the report are to be believed then she'll potentially be facing a penalty under the "bedroom tax" as at least six of those kids should be shared across three of the bedrooms.





Again I hesitate to use this woman's specific case to either defend or attack her, I don't know her but I'll assume that because she has allowed her photo to be used then she has at least been interviewed by a reporter and to be fair to the Mail its not a complete hatchet job on her, you however seem perfectly happy to label her as one of Camerons Shirkers Army ?

Lets not refer to her specifically but instead take an example of a married female with a number of children who chooses to stay and home and raise those children rather than working, there are no reports that her kids are feral or anything other than normal well behaved kids, so she's pretty much the Tory blueprint for the "perfect wife", one who is prepared to set aside ambition and career in order to be a home-maker, mother and role model to her children.

Then her husband abandons her and the children and fails to contribute to their upbringing, she loses the family home and has to seek social housing from the local council and fall back on social security to simply survive.

What is she now ?

Under this system? Set up for life. Apparently.

And your solution ?

I take it that the caring part of you (even hypothetically) got lonely and went away?

To the fact that someone who hasn't worked in 20 years can receive a level of benefits that equates to a salary of circa 40k/50k?

Oh, I think a root and branch review of the current system may just be in order. Surely even the most moist of Liberals,, would agree that there is a need to make work and contributing to society a tad more attractive than living on Benefits?

That is not to suggest they all be thrown into a poorhouse. Heaven forbid. We are a rich and caring enough Nation, are
we not Jerry?

Chris, I have not replied to inane chatter simply because i am a caring person, but when you have the wit, or intelligence to raise a valid point, rest assured i will.

There's a certain irony here, since you seemed to ignore almost all of the points in Jerry's post and simply respond with a soundbite.

Indeed, at no juncture have you offered anything like an alternative approach that deals with the issues.

The problem is that the level of benefits provided to anyone with a NIS number has already been assessed as being adequate to maintain a standard of living, the only question remaining is whether you and the Daily Mail find that level set to high.

No government minister ever chooses a single unemployed person as an example to vilify, mainly because the level of support provided is minimal and would be considered by some to be at a poverty level, its wouldn't be a very popular rebel rousing vote winner to point to such a bed-sit person and accuse them of shirking and scrounging.

It also doesn't help the government ministers cause that each type of benefit claimed by the example person in The Mail is an entitlement, she isn't fiddling the system, she's entitled to claim for each of those amounts and the claims are checked by government departments and awarded after cross-checking against other claims, yes, I know what the process is.

So its a system that has already been assessed many times as being fair and required to support the unemployed and low waged and its been long recognised that as a society we should do that - so what has changed ?

This government needs to make cuts, thats what has changed, but rather than just admit that they can't afford these previously approved support measures they prefer to try and substantiate them by turning the population against those who need to claim them, and with the collusion of a willing press they are doing a damn good job of it too by picking extreme examples and presenting them as the norm.

Its called PR spin.

Indeed. Of course you're right. You mention the press - let's not forget that the [iMail[/i and the [iSun[/i (to a slightly lesser extent) attempted to claim that Mick Philpott would not have committed mass murder were it not for the welfare system.

Spin indeed.

What never ceases to amaze me is that we can't afford the benefits that successive governments have designed, costed, put in place and religiously assessed in each individual case, but we CAN afford untold billions to unceasingly s down bottomless pots in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is indeed shameful how they pick the targets to denigrate. One interesting comparison would be that it costs the government £32k to keep this woman and all her kids, but £45k to keep the average prisoner in jail.

I'm more concerned about pi[is[/ising away untold £bns on HS2, just so someone can get from Birmingham to London 20 minutes earlier. Wouldn't it be cheaper to encourage them to catch an earlier train?

I looked at the figures for the proposed changes to legal aid and in total it costs us around £30 each per year. I dunno about anyone else but I'm more than happy to pay just over 10 bob a week for a legal safeguard

If we make the huge assumptions that you have made and we follow your line of thinking regarding benefits and, say, halve hers, who gains and who loses?
We, the taxpayers gain, what, £20k?
Then what do we do about those kids?
I guess your answer would be that if you can't afford kids you shouldn't have them, but they exist nonetheless and none of this situation is their fault, they are entirely innocent and blamelesss and the benefits are for their upkeep more than anyone else's.
Should we let them sleep on the streets? starve? send them to the workhouse?.... or what?
Or is it just not your problem and you couldn't fking care less?

£6bn per year for our armed forces in Afghanistan alone, apparently.
But hey, that's nothing compared to what the rare example of a woman with 7 kids costs us.

A little anecdote about a friend of mine to add to the "scrounger" theory.

His mum had given up work to give birth to him, there not being much in the way of maternity pay at th time. His dad was in a decent, fairly well paid job. Then she had become pregnant with his younger sister when he was about 5. So obviously did not seek employment.
The plan being, in 4 or so years when his sister starts school then his mum would probably find at least part time work, but even then she wasn't receiving benefits. But his sister had severe MS and needed a large amount of care. So she stayed off work. The money from his dads job just about seeing them through.
Then, when he was 13, my friends dad died suddenly of a heart attack. Suddenly there was no income and 2 kids to look after, 1 with serious issues. Fortunately there was a safety net there for my friend and his family. The benefits his mum received (I'm unsure what exactly they were but some form of housing benefit, income support etc) enabled them to stay in their modest house and just about scrape by. She couldn't get a job, she was essentially a full time carer. Then, a few years later she did, in my opinion, a wonderful thing. She adopted a 4 year old deaf boy with severe MS.
Now if you take the Daily Mail route you could say, single mum with 3 kids who hasn't worked for decades scrounges off the state. I'd rather say incredible woman deserves all the help the state and society can give her.

Its not an unusual story, the circumstances are unique but changing circumstances are the cause of most peoples reliance, short or long term, on state help.

Of course it doesn't make for newspaper headlines or for politicians spin to say "This family's main breadwinner has been made unemployed because of the recession and so for the next year or so, until things pick up, they will rely on benefits", no its much easier to call the unemployed "shirkers" to deflect blame for the fact that its you, the politician who caused the unemployment, directly or indirectly, and its you the politician who has it within their means to do something about it, but you won't, because your political machinations haven't gone far enough yet and the shirking unemployed are a price worth paying as long as everyone believes the spin.

The stories of a lifetime spent unemployed refer to small numbers, the stories of generations of unemployed have been proven by their own f'kin statisticians to be outright lies, yet still they print them.

Given that his area of representation was contained within Greg Mulhollands constituency I tweeted the House of Commons most prolific tweeter too asking him what he thought of one of his coalition partners being so ignorant of facts, surprisingly he did not reply either.