"BENEFIT SCANDAL" screams The Sun

Front page:
"Jobless Somali family of nine handed luxury £1600-a-week luxury home..on taxpayer"

I buy it to discover what the scandal is.

That a jobless Somali family of nine are handed a luxury £1600-a-week luxury home?
That taxpayers are footing the bill?

Which is the scandal? I pop over to page 9 for the Full Story

Ooh, it's fitted out with the latest modcons. Oh for a flat screen tv! Oh for a huge wall length wardrobe!

Don't be jealous stiggers, you could do the PRS and have all this too!

The mum, along with seven of her children and her pensioner mum were "allowed" to choose it "even though the rent is DOUBLE what estate agents reckon is the going rate."

What's the scandal there? That she was allowed to choose it or that the rent is twice that of the going rent?

The home, with its "FIVE storeys, SIX bedrooms - some with balconies - THREE sitting rooms, FOUR bathrooms and a spacious, superbly fitted-out kitchen... is not big enough."!!!!

Is that the scandal?!

So the (smiling in the photo) dad (brave man) lives with their eighth child in a two bed flat here in Camden - "again at the taxpayers' expense."

Is that the scandal? (Stigmum's wondering if it's a council two bed and can hear the Black Dog growl so tells the Black Dog it isn't even though she doesn't know hoping the Dog will quieten.)

The Taxpayers' Alliance says it's not the family's fault. Indeed, it is not (although with a flat that size why can't dad live with mum and put kiddie in a bunk bed? That's what I had when I was little).

I was chatting about the front page headline with the (Indian) woman at the local newsagent and she too, doesn't think it is the family's fault. She said it was the Government's fault. "They let them in and give them everything for free because of human rights," she told me. She didn't stop there but I'll get back to the article.

"The amount of housing benefit is determined by government policy." It's the Government's fault! (let me google who Ms Roe is... hang on..oh what a surprise, she's Tory!) Is that the scandal? (That it's the Government's fault, not that she's a Tory)

"We would like to see the entire system changed to enable local councils to have more control," says Ms Roe.

Change it how? Auction off existing council properties like the Tory/Libdem lovebirds are doing here in Camden?
Reduce the cap on housing benefits which is already contributing to the poverty of hundreds upon thousands of individuals who cannot afford the homes they are "allowed" to live in?

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "We will launch our consultation on reforms to housing benefit shortly. We want the system to be fair both to families in need and the taxpayer."

Who will they consult?
I don't have the answers... perhaps that is the scandal.

The family may have to move again.."The property is in the hands of receivers who claim it should not have been rented out." This is a flipping scandal, exactly what I'm afraid of with this whole PRS thing. Bounce bounce bounce our children...

Housing is no longer a crisis, it's a catastrophe. (I'm saying that, not The Sun although I do think it's implicit in the article.)

It is getting worse, much worse and I, for one, don't see a resolution. I don't think the red, blue, yellow or green politicians do either.

That is the scandal.

Who will you vote for next May? I, as ever, Don't Know but I bloody wish I Did.