We don't normally tread on Daily Mail demonisation of the Chavs territory on this blog. But today the story of Heather Frost, 37 year old mother of eleven, who is moving soon into a brand new, taxpayer funded purpose built house for her and her off spring, caught my eye.
And already its dog whistle time. The Daily Mail presses those middle class buttons so well. 'The purpose built house'. Well, all social housing is purpose built. Just not normally for eleven kids.
Her TWO current council houses are too cramped ! - well, they would be. Thirteen or fourteen people living in them. That's at least two to each bedroom. And having to serve meals in a kitchen made for 3-5 people.
And the pictures of her rubbish strewn, neglected, back garden don't actually specify that it is her garden. Just 'the properties' in that street. And even if it is her garden, from the front there are skips and it looks like some sort of clearout going on.
The images have set off the comments. Some 3000 comments just today, on the Mail Online, world's most popular media website. {That is actually an incredible statistic when you think about it. More people read the Daily Mail webpages, than read the BBC News, which is put together with a giant slice of Beeb funding. Some £120 million. Some of the comments on the mail online have been 'approved/disapproved by up to another 8-9,000 readers. Astonishing.}
As is to be expected most can't believe that this family of non workers, never workers, has been given a brand new house to live in. A nice house, not the usual council seconds. Many can't believe that the father's are nowhere to be seen. Others that the council has gone mad building a new house.
And I have to say I agree.
Not with the attacks on the council, who have no choice. They have, by statute, to adequately house their tenants. Nor with the attacks on the mother, who having been a fourteen year old pregmum, has no hope of having a good job, and has been bringing up a football team sized brood ever since anyway. Nor with the large number of comments complaining about having to pay a large mortgage while Mrs F pays about nothing. Your own mortgage has nothing to do with the government. You choose what you can afford. And the comment making the headlines, that 'she will inspect the new house to see if she's satisfied with it, or she won't move in' sounds suspiciously like an out of context remark.
What is making me angry..no more than angry..furious, is that this situation has been allowed to happen in the first place.
I am stunned that over the last fifteen years no one has explained to the mother that people have responsibilities, and she has to live within her means. If she wants to have eleven kids or eleven hundred its up to her. But the state should not be the provider. If she had a child at fourteen and wanted to be a mum, well..that's her life choice.
But it should have been made very clear that the maximum benefits allowable are 'X, irrespective of the number of dependents and that if the family was unable to cope, children would be taken into care.. That the maximum sized house is x bedrooms and that she must be aware that its necessary to live within those rooms, or rent / buy her own place.
That rents may rise and that energy bills, food bills, clothing costs may too. That benefits may rise or may not. That her tenancy will be a five year renewable agreement, subject to revision, and not for life. That anti social behaviour would not be tolerated. That the children are expected to attend school each school day and are suitably clothed and fed.
That unemployment benefits are paid on a decreasing scale and in order to receive them, after x months/years, voluntary work will be required to be undertaken, if no suitable jobs exist.
In short.. she should have been told that she was damn lucky to have got one of the limited stock of social housing in the first place, that the state spends more money than it actually has, so don't take the proverbial.
I'm not claiming that Mrs Frost's children ARE ASBO street kids and she is a feckless parent. They might be model pupil, high achievers for all I know. What I am suggesting is that future households planning to have 10 kids will be aware that their are limits to welfare and that benefits to suit circumstances are not an automatic right. The minimum 1 bed flat on the top floor of a tower block is a right. Everything else must be earned, and may be withdrawn.
There aren't many people in Mrs Frost's situation. But there are some 40,000 families, out of work with 5 or more children. And it had been on the rise since 2008, because benefits were not capped. How many are long term and how many recent recession victims isn't known. But surely even 1,000 families of 5 children, where no family member has EVER worked, is 1,000 too many.
Ian Duncan Smith's reforms are attempting to prevent these extreme cases occurring. The nasty party wants to impoverish the poorest and most dependent in society. They have been widely condemned by many as Victorian era poor laws.
But they aren't . They are trying to bring some sanity back to a system that has gone absurdly wrong.
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