I'm amazed that in NuBritain the debate about the cost to the tax payer of poor children hasn't got as far as suggesting their parents should be sterilised to save the state money.
I'm sure it will get to that before too long the way this country is becoming more fascist by the day.
There's always some prick with a tuppence ha'penny opinion that dismisses kids purely on their background and while they think this way I can't imagine that the opportunities for those born on the wrong side of the tracks will ever improve.
Commenting on the analyical, yet somehow clinical analysis of how the poorest are having more children to be kept by the rich - who might perhaps be just too selfish to share their wealth or time with dependent offspring - one person says :
Those children will be academic failures. They won't get decent jobs and they won't produce tax revenue in the future to offset their cost.
... and in a stroke writes them off when real life is not black, white, or written in numbers. It is, for many, a journey of starting somewhere and wanting to be better and provide for your children something better than you had yourself. What helps in this journey are opportunities and jobs.
I think I'm typical of underclass roots. My mum was a single parent before the term was invented. They used to call 'em widows or abandoned women in my childhood.
She had five kids. My sister - her fourth child - wrote to the local paper in the 70s in response to an article that claimed kids without fathers were more likely to become "juvenile delinquents" (quaint) without work.
She had a fistful of qualifications from school and after hundreds of applications still hadn't got a job. Her point was that she was trying. None of us, incidentally, have criminal records.
I was more of a rebel and education didn't mean very much to me. I left school without taking any exams. I remember the local reporter who came to interview my sister asked me why and I simply replied: "What? and end up like that? No thanks."
I was happy to get a job down the local shop and then the local factory and didn't take any notice of my mum who warned the future would be different and to get on you had to get qualified at something.
That sister became a nurse. She is married now with one child after many years as a tax payer and working mum. Thanks to the destruction of the NHS she is now re-qualifying in a different trade to continue the contribution to keeping her family. Limited cost to the state and with a very intelligent son who will contribute to society when he leaves school.
My eldest sister has never been on welfare. She is now a retired teacher living in the US. She has one child born in the US. No cost to the UK state.
My brother has worked all his life and served his country in the RAF. In hard times, of which there have been many, he has even slept in a tent in a ditch and in his car to work in other towns when he hasn't earned enough to also afford accommodation. He is no cost to the state. He had one child who is married to a relatively high earner. Both hard workers. Both more than capable of looking after their two children. No cost to the state.
I ended up a single parent with four children. I was dismissed as all of those derogatory things normally said about single parent mothers. The difference between then and now was that I had a chance to make good after falling by the wayside. Today when you reach bottom you get stuck there.
Thatcher was a cow to people like me but she did at least give me free education - a way out. I took it and soon became a taxpayer. I had 10 years on the social which was nothing more than a hand to mouth existence I can assure you. There is nothing worse than having to ask your kids in winter if they want to be cold or hungry because you can't afford both heating and food.
I had jobs between and so did pay some taxes for my keep but they were always hard to stick with simply because of child care issues. Thanks to Mrs T's free education, I got a profession which meant I could afford child care when I needed it and I've been a proper and "decent" member of society now for over 20 years. I have many more working years left in me to continue this contribution.
My eldest children have never been dependent on welfare. Both are tax payers. One a high earner. I am sure they each give back in one month more than we ever had handed to us on welfare in at least half a year. In fact, when I had to give details of my "income" when I started college, I found my family had cost the state £6000 in three years. When I first became self employed, I paid £5000 that year in tax - I recall it was the same amount paid by some mega rich tax dodging financial contributor to Bliar's NuLab party.
My son is now in college. Like my elder girls, he won't go to University because we are priced out of it. Labour did that. NuConDems have made that even more remote. But he has talent, family support and a dream to work in IT. I am sure he will achieve that and contribute his share to the state as well.
My youngest daughter fell by the wayside at 15 after inheriting some of her mother's immature rebellion. It's a very long story that one day I might tell, but the state wouldn't lift a finger in trying to help me get her back on the straight and narrow.
Despite this, she still didn't end up as one these so called "feckless breeders". She has a child now she is 21 and she is expecting another. Her long time partner works but has a very low income. The state falls very short in its duty of base financial care to her family and we often bridge that very large gap between hunger and basic existence with family financial support.
In not far ago times gone by her partner would have earned a very decent living via hard labour on the land but that opportunity has been taken from him and given to a host of migrant workers who do not contribute to the state welfare system.
Nothing about their life is easy despite the myth and as she says:
"I work 24 hours a day as a mum. I'm a cook, a cleaner, a parent, a teacher, a referee, a nanny, a nurse, a maid, and a comforter.. I dont get holidays, sick pay, or a day of work.. I work through the day and night, I'm on call 24hours a day, 7days a week.."
I have no doubt that when my daughter's children get older she will go back and follow her career dreams with suppport from both our families. That's one thing the underclass is good at. It looks after its own.
Daughter number 2 also has a child but she works to keep her and pay for her child care despite having a stingy rich ex-half who fails to pay his fair share.
I am sure that her state tax, my state tax, and daughter number 1's state tax combined more than pay for the pittance that daughter number 3 gets.
I have no idea where these "hundreds of thousands of pounds welfare claimants" are or who they are but in terms of underclass parents, I haven't met any of them.
To break the welfare system and dependency is very simple. You have to give people jobs and support business and commerce. Coming out of the EU will help a lot with that. The state could also make education free to those who want to progress in life, and encourage entrepreneurship rather than strangle it with red 'elf and safety/licence/jobsworth's tape.
The bottom line is that we are human and we will have children because that's what humans do. We have no right to tell anyone that they have no right to be a parent or have as many kids as they want.
If we don't want to pay for them that's another matter but we have a duty to help those in the underclass reach opportunities and get work that many of them want if only decent paid work was available. The lack of it is what causes the problem not just that people are born into poverty.
I sincerely fear that this debate can only take us further back towards Victorian times.