I just watched britians hidden hungry.
Aired by the bbc.
Here is whats bizzare, it was filmed in coventry not far from me in the midlands yet the show was only for bbc scotland, so probably very little in england have viewed it.
It showed numerous people who visited food bank charities.
A young lady called charlotte volunteered there and had no income at all, she was told by the job centre to have a child so she could qualify for benefits, she refused to have that child.
There was a few other cases, as well but all the other cases shown were people who had children.
One case shown was a guy who was abusing the system, lieing about his childs birthday, previous job etc. He fooled the manager of the food bank and was getting food without issued vouchers, whilst another person was challenged even tho she had a voucher. This highlights the danger of individuals judging people at face value.
2 of the people shown including the lady who was questioned were doing charity work themselves, the young girl herself was actually working for the food bank. I relate with the stories as myself having benefited from social help ended up doing charity work myself for the same people who had helped me. Apparently now we have record number of food banks opening in an era where certian parts of the population feel we have no poverty in this country.
Also this show is not about welfare in particular, one lady admitted her problems were made worse by the fact she chose to work for mcdonolds instead of staying unemployed, which highlighted 2 issues, one that mcdonalds dont pay a livign wage and two that the state doesnt help low paid workers enough (what a lot of us already know) and proves the tories values wrong that their solution to work not paying is to make the welfare state unfit for purpose but it doesnt solve the problem that low paid jobs dont pay a living wage.
Funny enough even tho I havent used a food bank, I personally only have one meal a day on average, as its something I got used to whilst on incapacity benefit and have stuck to that habit and now dont regret it. Because charlotte temporarily managed to get back to normal eating habits but then fell into trouble again and because her body had adjusted to the new eating habits she broke down.
The show is only on iplayer for another few hours.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...Hidden_Hungry/
What we seeing now is ideological, there is an assumption the poor cannot manage money (when I feel its the opposite the rich cant handle money), this is proven when we get people on decent wages saying they need to keep their child benefits, tax credits, cant afford more tax etc. because they "work bloody hard" and cant afford to go without, my answer to them is if you cant afford to get by on say 30k a year, how do you expect someone on 10k to manage, I never get a straight answer other than because "I work for it".
In terms of the original reason for the topic, I dont feel a child limit is a problem and is something I would be ok with. The one part of the welfare system that has always been too soft is the amount paid for children. I got no issue with help for childcare I will make that clear tho as I repsect childcare is expensive.