Benefit Scroungers! A wife, a mistress, and fourteen kids – one one council house
So shouts this week’s Closer magazine. Only that’s not right, is it? Scrounging would be putting each kid in their own council house, thus depriving their council of more resources. Shoving fourteen kids into a single council house is the opposite of scrounging: it seems positively thrifty. Good on them.
These sorts of occupancy levels were common in the Soviet Union. If the advice of progressives in the UK were followed, this bloke would be a shining example to us all.
For me, I’m more interested in how he managed to persuade his wife to let him move a mistress in. I doubt I would survive broaching such a subject with my lady.
A response to Tim’s interest – the wife is probably grateful to share the matrimonial duties after caring for 14 chiuldren and let’s face it, it’s another pair of hands for the rest of the junk too.
Well, my response it quite simple. This man obviuosly “loves his country” as he says and to be honest i don’t blame him. he says this for one reason, he gets treated completely different to every other WORKING person in Britain. if everyone got treated as he does(which in my oppinion is very much like royalty), there would be no Britain. the country would quite simply be bankrupt. Does this man not realize that the money he receives each week has to come out of someones hard earned wage each month, this just to keep him out of work? he needs to wake up and realize that the people of Britain are working to give him his money and he should be ashamed of himself and how he can have any self-respect is beyond me. He is also going bring his 15 children up to be the same type of person he is and they will think that this is the right way to live, which it isn’t. Each of his wives must also think this is right. How can any self respecting woman be with a man who doesn’t support his family, he leaves all this to the council? And not only that, the man has the nerve to say hes “ashamed” of his country! This clearly shows that he doesn’t apriciate what he has been given off the council and if everyone decided to be like this man, Briatin would no longer exist. If this man can sleep at night them good luck to him, because to be hones i don’t see how he can.
Hannah, I agree with you that the self-respect of the women and the guy in question must be fairly low.
But as for them being treated like royalty, that’s a hyperbole too far. If the Queen, Prince Phillip and all their kids and grandkids were shoved into one run-down council house, I might agree.
As for your ideas of ‘Britain’ ( adifficult concept at the best of times), I would suggest that one of the reasons our country is strong is because we do catch and support those who are – for whatever reason – not working. Its galling to hear that some people take the system for a ride, but it is by no means clear that the man in question is doing that. Even if he was, it may be that we accept these scroungers in order to also provide benefits for the thousands who use them responsibly.
The scary thing is that there are hundreds more like this man, god knows how much they’re costing honest taxpayers!. I can see absolutely no reason why child benefit can’t be limited to the 2nd or 3rd child, not the 14th or 15th!!. I think his benefits should be cut right down, he and his family can live on bread and water for all I care. After all it is not his money as he hasn’t earned it. Trash like him make my blood boil, they really do. It’s bad enough being fleeced by Gordon Brown without the likes of him too..grrr…..
I can see absolutely no reason why child benefit can’t be limited to the 2nd or 3rd child
Hmm… What if you have two sets of twins? Or IVF quads!?
I think the point is that child support is something provided for the child, not the Mum or Dad who actually collects the money on their behalf. So you either provide the same amount for all children, or none at all.
If your worry is that this guy is some kind of scrounger who spends it on non-child related stuff, then there are probably just as many single parent wastrels out there who are similarly ‘abusing’ the system. They would not be caught in the net you propose.
We hear a lot about these extreme cases. But there are plenty of folk out there who do not waste the benefits that the state provides. [Triple mixed-gardening-metaphor alert] I fear that in weeding out the bad apples, you risk throwing out the wheat with the chaff…
In any case, such policies tackle the symptoms, not the cause of the problem. There is a wider concern about whether the welfare state actually helps people out of poverty, or keeps them there. I need to do a lot more reading on that subject before opining, though.
Thanks for your reply Robert. As far as twins or IVF quads are concerned, these are rare cases and of course exceptions should be made for medical instances such as that. I agree that there are plenty of others that are abusing the system, but does that make it right? Of course not.
If people can’t afford children, then they shouldn’t have them. How some people can expect taxpayers to fund their lifestyle choices is beyond me.
I also accept that some people deserve benefits and use them responsibly as you rightly say, but the crux of the matter remains that I’m sick and tired of people like Philpott who will not take responsiblility for their own affairs and expect the rest of us to do it for them.