Three benefit stories
The UK government has started making huge cuts in spending in an attempt to reduce the country's equally huge deficit. There will be changes to the benefit system and child, disability and housing benefits are among those affected. Here are three stories, one about each benefit, which, in my opinion, illustrates the madness of the system.
In a damning example of Shameless Britain, Macdonald, whose ninth and tenth babies are due next year, whinged: “Why should I pay a penny for them?”
Just £5 a week is deducted from his incapacity benefit, which he claims for a bad back, to go towards the children’s upkeep. Last night critics condemned 25-year-old Macdonald, who has been branded the “Incapacity Casanova”.
Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be furious that their money is being spent supporting one man to have so many children, with so many different women, without any apparent attempt to provide for them himself.
“This is a disgusting abuse of a benefits system that is supposed to look after those who have genuinely fallen on hard times. It is shocking that someone can be so indifferent to their responsibilities.”
Macdonald, from Tyne and Wear, lives with his friend Jason Burdis in a council flat in Washington.
Sprawled on the sofa, swigging from a can of lager, and watching his flatscreen TV, Macdonald said: “None of the mothers will let me see any of my kids for some reason. If I can’t see them, why should I pay a penny for them?”
Laura Ripley had more reasons than most to celebrate her 25th birthday this year as it was a milestone doctors told her she would never see.
The Take That fan had spent the whole of her life "eating herself to death" until four years ago her 30-stone mum died and she decided to diet.
And after dropping from 38-stone to 22-stone with the help of an NHS-funded gastric bypass she was well on her way to achieving her goal of slimming into a pair of size 12 jeans.
Until this month when benefit bosses decided to scrap her £340 disability allowance on the grounds she is no longer fat enough to claim.
Laura, 25, claims it is a decision that could see her pile weight back on because with hand-outs of £600 a month left, she says she can't afford to eat healthily.
Speaking from the two-bed flat she shares with her new boyfriend, unemployed chef Simon Hawkins, 28, Laura admits she has already gained a stone in weight since she lost the right to the extra money.
She said: "It's been a matter of weeks and I'm already nearly a stone heavier from all the junk I've had to eat.
"I can't afford WeightWatchers crisps and healthy cereal bars anymore so instead I have to go for cheap chocolate and packets of fatty Space Invaders.
"I've also had to cancel my gym membership and instead of healthy salads for my evening meal, we have cheaper dinners like toad in the hole.
"My daily calorie count has gone from 1,200 a day to 2,500. It's just not fair."
Laura, of St Leonards, is no stranger to junk food.
At 12 years old Laura was already weighing in at 15 stone after a childhood spent splashing out on cakes and sweets.
By the age of 20 she was morbidly obese at 38-stone.
Too heavy to ever have worked after leaving school, she became a recluse until her mum died suddenly on Christmas Eve 2005.
It was the kick start she was in desperate need of, and two days later made the call to her GP that changed her life.
Forced to lose weight in the lead up to the gastric bypass op, Laura managed to shed eight-and-a-half-stone in 18 months before going under the knife in June 2007.
She said: “I was almost sick when the letter arrived one morning telling me the Disability Living Allowance had been cut completely.
"That was the money I used to pay for the gym, pay for healthy food and have my hair highlighted.
"Without it I'm left with the £200 incapacity benefit and the £100 income support I receive every two weeks and out of that I have to give them back about £70 towards the cost of the £500-a-month flat I'm living in. It's ridiculous."
As well as Laura's handouts, her boyfriend Simon, an unemployed pub chef who moved in to her flat from his home in Manchester after meeting her online a year ago, also survives solely on government hand outs.
In fact it is their coupling that Laura claims is behind the decision to cut off the £4,080-a-year payments - a move she is about to launch her second appeal against.
Abdi and Sayruq Nur and their seven children moved into their three-storey property in a fashionable area of London last month because they didn't like the 'poorer' part of the city they were living in.
Mr Nur, 42, an unemployed bus conductor, and his 40-year-old wife, who has never worked, are now living in Kensington despite the fact that they are totally dependent on state benefits.
They live close to celebrities, including artist Lucian Freud, singer Damon Albarn and designer Stella McCartney, and their home is just minutes from the fashionable Kensington Place restaurant which was a favourite haunt of the late Princess Diana.
The family's new home is believed to be one of the most expensive houses ever paid for by housing benefit, which is administered by local councils but funded by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The disclosure that a single family has been paid so much will embarrass Ministers, who last month pledged to rein in Britain's £20billion-a-year housing benefit bill.
Mr Nur said his former five-bedroom home in the Kensal Rise area of Brent, which cost £900 a week in housing benefit, was suitable for the family's needs but he said they had felt compelled to move because they did not like living 'in a very poor area' and were unhappy with the quality of local shops and schools.
He said he found the new house through a friend who knew the landlord, arranged to rent it through an estate agent, then approached officials at Kensington and Chelsea council who said 'it would be no problem' to move.
Rules allow anyone who is eligible for housing benefit to claim for a private property in any part of the country they wish.
The £2,000 per week is paid directly to Mr Nur and his family, who then pay their landlord.
Property sources say the house was being advertised locally at a cost of £1,050 per week.
The house is owned by Brophy Group Business Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company whose registered address is a post office box in Liechtenstein.
No one from the firm, which bought the house for £2.1 million in 2007, was available for comment.
Mr Nur said: 'The new house is good enough and it is near the school and the shops. We need a house this big because we have so many children.
'The old house was good but the area was not so good. It was a very poor area and there were no buses, no shops and the schools were too far.
'The old house was four or five bus stops away from the primary school attended by two of my children.
'Soon, all three of our younger children are going to be at primary school and we can't take them all on the bus. Now they are going to a school which is just down the road.'
From September, his children will attend a school located just 20 yards from their new front door - which has been rated as outstanding by Ofsted.
They previously attended a school in Kensal Rise which was rated as satisfactory.
But Mr Nur said his neighbourhood also had other advantages. 'I like the neighbours and there does not seem to be much crime.'
He added: 'They have very full shops here and they are still open at 2am. Unlike at Kensal Rise, where they closed at 7pm or 8pm.'
Mr Nur, who lost his £6.50-an-hour job as a bus conductor 18 months ago, claims officials at Kensington and Chelsea council said they 'didn't care' about his decision to move into the borough, which they said was 'not a problem'.
The family's three-storey property, which dates from the 1840s, has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a fully fitted kitchen and a garden.
The family's living room, which boasts a large bay window, is dominated by a 50in LG flatscreen TV. It also has two large black leather sofas, two elaborate rugs and lush houseplants.
Neighbours of the family last night expressed their shock at the amount of housing benefit being claimed.
Nigel Melville, 65, a company director, said: 'To be paying that much out in housing benefit is ridiculous - it's too much. I suppose they had to be housed somewhere, but it's an awful lot of money.'
Mr Nur worked for the Red Cross in Somalia and married his wife in 1993.
The couple subsequently fled their homeland because of civil war and were granted asylum in Britain in 1999.
The couple's four oldest children, who are aged between 12 and 16, were all born in Somalia. The youngest three children were born in Britain.
Mr Nur last night acknowledged the family was lucky to have the new home, but he insisted his family 'were no better or no worse off than anyone else'.
He also insisted he was doing his best to find a job.
'I am looking for a job. I am taking a course to train me in how to get a job. I would like any job. Anything in food production or warehouses would be fine.'
The current housing benefit system was overhauled by the last government in April 2008. Labour Ministers introduced new caps on the amount claimants could receive, depending on the size and location of the property.
But instead of bringing costs down, the new system encouraged many landlords to raise rents to the level of the maximum allowable.
The new government has announced further sweeping changes to the housing benefit system, which will come into effect next April.
The new rules mean claimants living in a four or five-bedroom house will no longer be able to claim more than £400 a week.
The changes have led to warnings that thousands of families will be forced out of existing homes into cheaper properties.
But critics say the changes are essential because of mounting concern about the size of some individual claims, particularly in London.
Earlier this year, it emerged that Essma Marjam, a single mother of six, was being paid nearly £7,000 a month so that she could live in a five-bedroom villa in Maida Vale.
In December, Francesca Walker, a mother-of-eight who also lived in Kensington and Chelsea, defended her £90,000-a-year housing benefit claims for a £2 million villa in Notting Hill.
She said the family were completely justified in living there because the council could not find a big enough property.
The London borough of Kensington and Chelsea last night declined to comment on the specific circumstances of the Nur family's claim.
The council said it had a responsibility to meet the needs of claimants who were eligible for benefits and was powerless to stop people moving into private accommodation in the area.
A spokesman said: 'We have been saying for some years now that the way in which the maximum level of housing benefit is calculated is flawed and we welcome the Government's new changes which begin next year.
'The sums of money that many families claim for housing in the capital and elsewhere is an example of an unreasonably generous benefits system which is open to abuse.'
A spokesman for Brent Council said: 'Households, whether they are claiming benefits or are in work, are able to make their own arrangements in terms of renting privately, as long as they can find a landlord with a suitable property.
'This includes decisions about where they live.'
£2M BENEFITS FOR DAD OF 10
A FECKLESS layabout has fathered eight children by eight different mothers – with two more on the way.
Jobless Keith Macdonald sparked outrage last night after it emerged that he does not see any of his children and does not give any money to their mothers, meaning taxpayers will have to foot the massive £2million benefits bill.In a damning example of Shameless Britain, Macdonald, whose ninth and tenth babies are due next year, whinged: “Why should I pay a penny for them?”
Just £5 a week is deducted from his incapacity benefit, which he claims for a bad back, to go towards the children’s upkeep. Last night critics condemned 25-year-old Macdonald, who has been branded the “Incapacity Casanova”.
Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be furious that their money is being spent supporting one man to have so many children, with so many different women, without any apparent attempt to provide for them himself.
“This is a disgusting abuse of a benefits system that is supposed to look after those who have genuinely fallen on hard times. It is shocking that someone can be so indifferent to their responsibilities.”
Macdonald, from Tyne and Wear, lives with his friend Jason Burdis in a council flat in Washington.
Sprawled on the sofa, swigging from a can of lager, and watching his flatscreen TV, Macdonald said: “None of the mothers will let me see any of my kids for some reason. If I can’t see them, why should I pay a penny for them?”
Benefit cuts force me to eat unhealthy chocolate and crisps, says Sussex woman
A 22-stone woman who has lost a staggering 16-stone says a decision to stop her £340 disability allowance could see her pile the pounds back on.Laura Ripley had more reasons than most to celebrate her 25th birthday this year as it was a milestone doctors told her she would never see.
The Take That fan had spent the whole of her life "eating herself to death" until four years ago her 30-stone mum died and she decided to diet.
And after dropping from 38-stone to 22-stone with the help of an NHS-funded gastric bypass she was well on her way to achieving her goal of slimming into a pair of size 12 jeans.
Until this month when benefit bosses decided to scrap her £340 disability allowance on the grounds she is no longer fat enough to claim.
Laura, 25, claims it is a decision that could see her pile weight back on because with hand-outs of £600 a month left, she says she can't afford to eat healthily.
Speaking from the two-bed flat she shares with her new boyfriend, unemployed chef Simon Hawkins, 28, Laura admits she has already gained a stone in weight since she lost the right to the extra money.
She said: "It's been a matter of weeks and I'm already nearly a stone heavier from all the junk I've had to eat.
"I can't afford WeightWatchers crisps and healthy cereal bars anymore so instead I have to go for cheap chocolate and packets of fatty Space Invaders.
"I've also had to cancel my gym membership and instead of healthy salads for my evening meal, we have cheaper dinners like toad in the hole.
"My daily calorie count has gone from 1,200 a day to 2,500. It's just not fair."
Laura, of St Leonards, is no stranger to junk food.
At 12 years old Laura was already weighing in at 15 stone after a childhood spent splashing out on cakes and sweets.
By the age of 20 she was morbidly obese at 38-stone.
Too heavy to ever have worked after leaving school, she became a recluse until her mum died suddenly on Christmas Eve 2005.
It was the kick start she was in desperate need of, and two days later made the call to her GP that changed her life.
Forced to lose weight in the lead up to the gastric bypass op, Laura managed to shed eight-and-a-half-stone in 18 months before going under the knife in June 2007.
She said: “I was almost sick when the letter arrived one morning telling me the Disability Living Allowance had been cut completely.
"That was the money I used to pay for the gym, pay for healthy food and have my hair highlighted.
"Without it I'm left with the £200 incapacity benefit and the £100 income support I receive every two weeks and out of that I have to give them back about £70 towards the cost of the £500-a-month flat I'm living in. It's ridiculous."
As well as Laura's handouts, her boyfriend Simon, an unemployed pub chef who moved in to her flat from his home in Manchester after meeting her online a year ago, also survives solely on government hand outs.
In fact it is their coupling that Laura claims is behind the decision to cut off the £4,080-a-year payments - a move she is about to launch her second appeal against.
Somali asylum seeker family given £2m house... after complaining 5-bed London home was 'in poor area'
A family of former asylum-seekers from Somalia are living in a £2.1million luxury townhouse in one of Britain's most exclusive addresses at a cost to taxpayers of £8,000 a month.Abdi and Sayruq Nur and their seven children moved into their three-storey property in a fashionable area of London last month because they didn't like the 'poorer' part of the city they were living in.
Mr Nur, 42, an unemployed bus conductor, and his 40-year-old wife, who has never worked, are now living in Kensington despite the fact that they are totally dependent on state benefits.
They live close to celebrities, including artist Lucian Freud, singer Damon Albarn and designer Stella McCartney, and their home is just minutes from the fashionable Kensington Place restaurant which was a favourite haunt of the late Princess Diana.
The family's new home is believed to be one of the most expensive houses ever paid for by housing benefit, which is administered by local councils but funded by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The disclosure that a single family has been paid so much will embarrass Ministers, who last month pledged to rein in Britain's £20billion-a-year housing benefit bill.
Mr Nur said his former five-bedroom home in the Kensal Rise area of Brent, which cost £900 a week in housing benefit, was suitable for the family's needs but he said they had felt compelled to move because they did not like living 'in a very poor area' and were unhappy with the quality of local shops and schools.
He said he found the new house through a friend who knew the landlord, arranged to rent it through an estate agent, then approached officials at Kensington and Chelsea council who said 'it would be no problem' to move.
Rules allow anyone who is eligible for housing benefit to claim for a private property in any part of the country they wish.
The £2,000 per week is paid directly to Mr Nur and his family, who then pay their landlord.
Property sources say the house was being advertised locally at a cost of £1,050 per week.
The house is owned by Brophy Group Business Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company whose registered address is a post office box in Liechtenstein.
No one from the firm, which bought the house for £2.1 million in 2007, was available for comment.
Mr Nur said: 'The new house is good enough and it is near the school and the shops. We need a house this big because we have so many children.
'The old house was good but the area was not so good. It was a very poor area and there were no buses, no shops and the schools were too far.
'The old house was four or five bus stops away from the primary school attended by two of my children.
'Soon, all three of our younger children are going to be at primary school and we can't take them all on the bus. Now they are going to a school which is just down the road.'
From September, his children will attend a school located just 20 yards from their new front door - which has been rated as outstanding by Ofsted.
They previously attended a school in Kensal Rise which was rated as satisfactory.
But Mr Nur said his neighbourhood also had other advantages. 'I like the neighbours and there does not seem to be much crime.'
He added: 'They have very full shops here and they are still open at 2am. Unlike at Kensal Rise, where they closed at 7pm or 8pm.'
Mr Nur, who lost his £6.50-an-hour job as a bus conductor 18 months ago, claims officials at Kensington and Chelsea council said they 'didn't care' about his decision to move into the borough, which they said was 'not a problem'.
The family's three-storey property, which dates from the 1840s, has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a fully fitted kitchen and a garden.
The family's living room, which boasts a large bay window, is dominated by a 50in LG flatscreen TV. It also has two large black leather sofas, two elaborate rugs and lush houseplants.
Neighbours of the family last night expressed their shock at the amount of housing benefit being claimed.
Nigel Melville, 65, a company director, said: 'To be paying that much out in housing benefit is ridiculous - it's too much. I suppose they had to be housed somewhere, but it's an awful lot of money.'
Mr Nur worked for the Red Cross in Somalia and married his wife in 1993.
The couple subsequently fled their homeland because of civil war and were granted asylum in Britain in 1999.
The couple's four oldest children, who are aged between 12 and 16, were all born in Somalia. The youngest three children were born in Britain.
Mr Nur last night acknowledged the family was lucky to have the new home, but he insisted his family 'were no better or no worse off than anyone else'.
He also insisted he was doing his best to find a job.
'I am looking for a job. I am taking a course to train me in how to get a job. I would like any job. Anything in food production or warehouses would be fine.'
The current housing benefit system was overhauled by the last government in April 2008. Labour Ministers introduced new caps on the amount claimants could receive, depending on the size and location of the property.
But instead of bringing costs down, the new system encouraged many landlords to raise rents to the level of the maximum allowable.
The new government has announced further sweeping changes to the housing benefit system, which will come into effect next April.
The new rules mean claimants living in a four or five-bedroom house will no longer be able to claim more than £400 a week.
The changes have led to warnings that thousands of families will be forced out of existing homes into cheaper properties.
But critics say the changes are essential because of mounting concern about the size of some individual claims, particularly in London.
Earlier this year, it emerged that Essma Marjam, a single mother of six, was being paid nearly £7,000 a month so that she could live in a five-bedroom villa in Maida Vale.
In December, Francesca Walker, a mother-of-eight who also lived in Kensington and Chelsea, defended her £90,000-a-year housing benefit claims for a £2 million villa in Notting Hill.
She said the family were completely justified in living there because the council could not find a big enough property.
The London borough of Kensington and Chelsea last night declined to comment on the specific circumstances of the Nur family's claim.
The council said it had a responsibility to meet the needs of claimants who were eligible for benefits and was powerless to stop people moving into private accommodation in the area.
A spokesman said: 'We have been saying for some years now that the way in which the maximum level of housing benefit is calculated is flawed and we welcome the Government's new changes which begin next year.
'The sums of money that many families claim for housing in the capital and elsewhere is an example of an unreasonably generous benefits system which is open to abuse.'
A spokesman for Brent Council said: 'Households, whether they are claiming benefits or are in work, are able to make their own arrangements in terms of renting privately, as long as they can find a landlord with a suitable property.
'This includes decisions about where they live.'
What is your opinion on any of the above stories?
Is there a benefit system in Spain?
What kind of help do you get from government?
Is it a fair system?
Comments
Three benefit stories. 2M BENEFITS FOR DAD OF 10
It’s unbelievable. Mr. Macdonald boasts that he has slept with 40 women. One girlfriend of Macdonald, Ms. Amstrong, who is six weeks pregnant said that “I’m not sure why he’s saying he doesn`t know me now”, but Macdonald said that he did not know Amrstrom. Another girl, Danielle Little, 24, who is unemployed, said that she is expecting a child with Macdonald. Stacey Barker, 22, had another child with Macdonald and said: “Men like him should be made to have the snip, or be fined or even jailed”. Clare Bryant, 21, mother of a five-month-old said: “The next time I see him I am going to give him the Spanish Inquisition”. The first child with Michelle Purvis, is 10 now. Another girlfriend, Charlotte Anderson, now 25, had another daughter with him, Kady, now eight.
It seems that Mr. Macdonald has fathered ten babies by eight different mothers and English taxpayers have to foot the massive 2 million pounds benefits bill. But Mr. Macdonalt doesn’t want to pay his children and he whinged: “Why should I pay a penny for them?” This is a disgusting abuse of a benefits English system that gives benefits to a feckless layabouts like Mr. Macdonald. I hope that there is not more layabout, neither in England, nor in Spain. Mr. Macdonal lives with his friend Jason Burdis in a council flat in Washington sprawled on the sofa, swigging from a can of lager and watching his flatscreen and said: “None of the mother will let me see any of my kids for some reason”. It’s unbelievable.
See you.
The benefits system should be there for people who have fallen on hard times. Unfortunately, there are many people who abuse the system. The highlighted cases are extreme though they show how easy it is to get money.
... Stacey Barker, 22, had another child with Macdonald and said: “Men like him should be made to have the snip (do you know what this means?), or be fined or even jailed”. ... But Mr. Macdonald doesn’t want to pay for his children and he whinged: “Why should I pay a penny for them?” This is a disgusting abuse of the English benefit system that gives benefits to a feckless layabout like Mr. Macdonald. I hope that there is not more layabouts, neither in England, nor in Spain. Mr. Macdonald lives with his friend Jason Burdis in a council flat in Washington sprawled on the sofa, swigging from a can of lager and watching his flatscreen and said: “None of the mothers will let me see any of my kids for some reason”.