People have been quick to criticise the out of work mother of 11 kids for whom a council is organising a new purpose-built house. However, is what she is doing any worse than middle class women in their early 40s who have left having a family too late and now demand IVF on the NHS, the myriad self-employed who accept cash payment to avoid paying tax or VAT (and those who collude by paying cash), those who arrange their elderly parents' finances such that the state picks up their parents' care bill so they still inherit the parental home, or the well off who arrange their affairs through off-shore trusts such that they pay little or no tax at all?
The poor have no-one on which to off-load their guilt - they're the bottom of the pile and become the scapegoats of society. It's easy to tut from a height, but most of us are guilty at some stage of trying to cadge a free lunch from the (allegedly) inexhaustible state fund.
It seems that wherever and whenever there's a system to exploit, some (or even many) will exploit it.
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