Well, blouse and skirt me! A single mum of eight, Marie Buchan, is in a state of distress. She has to get off her comfortable rear end and get a job. Why? Her very generous welfare benefits of £26,000 a year are being cut to a “measly £23,000”. And she is not happy. “This benefits cap is getting out of control,” said she. With that kind of insight, she should run for Parliament. “It is a constant struggle,” she wails.
Yes, I know what you mean, love. It’s a hard life getting twenty-six grand for nothing. She started having kids at 19 and has been on benefits ever since. She states that she has never had a job and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that she probably hasn’t contributed much to the public purse. But we have a system that allows this kind of malarkey.
This, dear reader, is the thing I wrote in my newspaper column 10 years ago. And guess what, not a lot has changed for Octomum Buchan in the intervening years, on the work front, that is. She never did get a job (but in fact had more kids) but guess what, she proudly boasts about having had a boob job amongst other costly cosmetic enhancements, foreign holidays and she even bought a horse. A what??
Yes, folks, the welfare state threw enough money at her to enable her to live a middle-class life. Okay, Kleenex at the ready, because things are tough for Ms Buchan right now, so much so she had to sell her horse eight months ago, as she couldn’t afford the expense, because, she claims, she ‘don’t get enough cash from the government’.
And by the way, she needs a bigger house. Needs a bigger house, she says, to house her eight children (and now their children). Bigger than the spacious four-bedroom council house with its large garden she currently occupies in a Birmingham suburb. Some people working their bollocks off don’t even have that! She has even suggested that people in larger homes should give them up to her. Which people? Of course, everyone and anyone is entitled to have any amount of children but not at the expense of the State.
Anyways, what I want to know is where is the dad or dads in all of this? If she claims to be a ‘single’ mother, how is she getting pregnant: multiple times? Is she not questioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)? This is what gets my goat.
The disabled (physical and learning) and those with long-term ill-health are put through the wringer by the DWP, as to why they need welfare benefits. And there is the ignominy of proving how disabled they are. Claimants face a barrage of questions (some very personal). Many are threatened with losing whatever meagre benefits they manage to grasp if they fail degrading assessments or even appear to be work-shy. Heck, we even have a situation where unpaid carers are being prosecuted (and persecuted) for giving ‘wrong information’ regarding Attendance and Carers Allowance.
The sad thing about Octomum Marie Buchan’s case is that it’s not an isolated one. The thing is, I am not actually blaming her. It’s the system that’s at fault. It’s the system that allows this kind of malarkey.
