Tory --- Benefits claimants encouraged to breed

[Christmas Tree 4920]

A Tory nominated for a peerage has said changes to welfare payments will give people on benefits "every incentive" to "breed".

 

Howard Flight told the Evening Standard: "We're going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it's jolly expensive but for those on benefit there is every incentive.

 

"Well that's not very sensible."

 

Flight was blaming the Lib Dems for forcing David Cameron to agree to bad policies, including cutting child benefit for high earners.

 

Downing Street has disowned the remarks.

 

A spokesman said: "He is not a member of the Government, he does not speak on behalf of the Government.

 

"We do not agree with what he said."

 

It was announced last week that former MP Mr Flight would become a member of the House of Lords.

 

In 2005, he was forced to resign as deputy chairman of the Conservatives after he was recorded saying the party would cut spending more than it had pledged publicly in the run-up to that year’s election campaign.

 

The then party leader Michael Howard said: "What I can't have is someone misrepresenting my view, misrepresenting what we do in government and suggesting that we say one thing in private and another thing in public."

 

Mr Flight told the paper: "He [Cameron] told me what happened to me was wrong, and I suppose going to the Lords is recognition of that."

 

Speaking to Sky News today, shadow work and pensions secretary Douglas Alexander said the Tories "didn't get it".

 

"Shameful but revealing comments from Howard Flight cast doubt on David Cameron's judgement in choosing him for the Lords," he said.

 

"Last week one of the Prime Minister's senior advisers told us we'd never had it so good and now his latest hand picked Peer comes out with these comments.

 

"Instead of dithering for hours as he did with Lord Young, David Cameron should take swift action and make Howard Flight apologise."

 

Lord Young resigned as Mr Cameron's enterprise adviser last week, after he said many Britons had "never had it so good" despite a "so-called recession".

[Guest alex]

Said this for a while as it's already the case imo.

[Asprilla 96]

Said this for a while as it's already the case imo.

Absofuckinglutely.

 

It's been fashionable to call anyone disagreeing with it a Daily Mail reader but ffs....I'm nearly 40 and only now do I think I'm in a position to bring a kid into the world.

[NJS 4446]

It's true but I think the idea its new or recent-ish is wrong as well - the idea of breeding for a council house going back to the late 70s in my memory.

[Meenzer 15870]

In a way I wonder if it's become more of an issue since the average age for "educated" people to start having kids got higher and higher. If you're waiting till your mid-30s and beyond then you're going to notice the discrepancy far more than when we all used to get hitched in our 20s and start popping 'em out like nobody's business.

[Guest alex]

Said this for a while as it's already the case imo.

Absofuckinglutely.

 

It's been fashionable to call anyone disagreeing with it a Daily Mail reader but ffs....I'm nearly 40 and only now do I think I'm in a position to bring a kid into the world.

What is annoying is that, like a lot of other issues, there's no room for any political debate about it. The comments by the Peer are spot on but even the Tories just dismiss them out of hand. And I don't even think it's because they think the public will disagree, by and large. It's because they want to quell any media shit storm that'll ensue. So instead of talking about it it's brushed under the carpet.

[NJS 4446]

The thing is that like a l lot of these "underclass" issues, there's no easy answer. You couldn't punish the kids being born by making the mothers poorer as that's not fair on them (the kids).

 

Even my idealistic mass contraception/antidote on licence if it were feasible would cause human rights anarchy.

[manc-mag 1]

The thing is that like a l lot of these "underclass" issues, there's no easy answer. You couldn't punish the kids being born by making the mothers poorer as that's not fair on them (the kids).

 

Even my idealistic mass contraception/antidote on licence if it were feasible would cause human rights anarchy.

 

 

I'd make it an arbitrary age, say 27, (rather than having to go before some licensing approval board). That makes it far from perfect but treats everyone identically so theres no personalised/individual human rights arguments or allegations of abuse by decision makers, which is where the system would get horrendous and as usual only the lawyers would be laughing.

 

An arbitrary age and theres only the obvious (fundemental) human rights argument to contend with, but that'd essentially be a political argument rather than a legal one, once it had been litigated upon for the first time.

[Christmas Tree 4920]

Said this for a while as it's already the case imo.

Absofuckinglutely.

 

It's been fashionable to call anyone disagreeing with it a Daily Mail reader but ffs....I'm nearly 40 and only now do I think I'm in a position to bring a kid into the world.

What is annoying is that, like a lot of other issues, there's no room for any political debate about it. The comments by the Peer are spot on but even the Tories just dismiss them out of hand. And I don't even think it's because they think the public will disagree, by and large. It's because they want to quell any media shit storm that'll ensue. So instead of talking about it it's brushed under the carpet.

 

 

TBF the question was raised on question time last night and apart from the Labour lassy jumping all over it, the rest of the panel were saying pretty much the same. What he was saying should be debated, just the words he chose wernt very clever.

 

I agree that its a shame that political correctness has got so bad that other politicians and the media make massive deals over nowt.