Suspect the only disagreement with this will be from right-wing trolls.

I think you are picking a fight with the wrong issue here…IMHO.

“He doesn’t seem to know that a majority of lone parents work, that 60% of young women felt more positive about education after they became pregnant than before or that 79% said that motherhood had increased their determination to get a good job.”

Yes, LONE PARENTS, not lone TEEN PARENTS, which are different things.

Feeling ‘positive’ about education is something to be applauded most certainly, but what actual concrete point does that make?

If the stats had been that people were actually getting good jobs, then its a fair point.

I thought Tom was right to point it out, albeit woefully lacking in solutions. Indeed, i think his analysis about the poverty of ambition, the fact that the working poor are the staunchest complainants regarding people who play the benefits and crucially, that having a baby is a choice.

Its all very well for well heeled intellect types to talk about ‘support’ and the like, but often they dont actually get up close and personal with the young girls who seek to get pregnant to get a flat.

The key thing is to make the benefits less about money and benefits, and more about incentives; free universal childcare upon receipt of employment seems one such idea i think should happen.

These debates need to be had, whatever you think of Tom Harris

Hi Marcus,

Happy to have the debate, but I’m old fashioned and think that debates about policy ought to involve things like evidence and talking to the people who are affected.

Comment number 2 on this thread, for example, went on about how teenage pregnancy has gone up ‘exponentially’ over the past ten years. In fact it has fallen. These are pretty basic facts.

“LONE PARENTS, not lone TEEN PARENTS, which are different things”

Teenage mums don’t stay teenagers for ever. Harris was talking about them facing ‘a lifetime of benefit dependency’.

‘Feeling ‘positive’ about education is something to be applauded most certainly, but what actual concrete point does that make?’

It’s in response to Harris’ point that teenage mums have no aspirations.

‘Its all very well for well heeled intellect types to talk about ’support’ and the like, but often they dont actually get up close and personal with the young girls who seek to get pregnant to get a flat.’

Which is why talking to teenage mums and listening to their experience and ideas is so important.

“The key thing is to make the benefits less about money and benefits, and more about incentives; free universal childcare upon receipt of employment seems one such idea i think should happen.”

Agree on universal childcare. On benefits, there are now higher benefits for lone parents than ten years ago, and lower rates of teenage pregnancy and more lone parents in work.

This is a fantastic post. Thank you.

Firstly, the rightwing trolls are gonna love this.

Secondly, there is nothing “morally wrong” with teenage girls getting pregnant, but it is correct that it would be preferable if children were born into a stable environment (this doesn’t necessarily mean a man and wife, nor does it always mean two parents).

We must debate these issues, even if that means we upset some people.

There are several words for powerful, middle-aged men who choose to pick on teenage girls, but the one which best sums up Tom Harris is bully. You will never, ever read him really slag off anyone who has any kind of power or influence, it’s always those weaker than him upon whom he chooses to heap abuse.

It somewhat peculiar for Tom Harris to start complaining about a problem the Labour Party have done their best to create and sustain whilst denying its existence, but otherwise he is only saying what everyone else in the know universe knows to be true In your world , Don, teenage girls get pregnant accidentally .They fall over and land awkwardly on an erect penis and ,what with all the confusion , over a five minute period , before you know it the rest of us are buying them a flat and the rest. How pretty is their wide eyed amazement as they survey their nice new kitchen whilst un-admitted boyf chips in .
A life style others work for gets funded by ignorant bourgeois hypocrites like you who never set foot in this world and pat themselves on the back ,for a living,on the basis of how much of other people’s money they spend . Many of these houses end up sub let and they are well aware that they stand a good chance of picking it up cheap later .Meanwhile the majority who play by the rules are stuck their parents and debts and no deposit .I know for a fact how fiercely this is resented and you regurgitation of the same old lies does not alter how very right Harris is about that .
My next door neighbour’s daughter did exactly that with catastrophic results for her and her daughter. In Islington I knew many more , once you are on that road its very hard to get off it and the state acted on lives malignantly just when the reverse was required . My wife’s friends from Bermondsey still talk with loathing about the injustice of it Your wilfully misleading point about lone parents includes the divorced and widowed and is an outrageous misrepresentation of the group we are talking about . It is of course the fault of needs based welfare and in particular housing.As far as bullying is concerned as we know there is powerful lobby in favour of teenage women so much so that it has been a subject verboten to Conservatives since Peter Lilley`s dreaded list . How brave of you to re-heat the glib apologies for what you suppose will be a supportive audience of goons ready to tell you how clever you are .I cannot say how impressed I am .

Higher benefits mean less people wanting them do they ? Oh for god

I agree there is nothing morally wrong with teenage girls getting pregnant. There is, however, something morally wrong when the taxpayer has to pick up the tab. The fact that Tom Harris only chooses to target these particular people doesn’t mean that his argument is wrong in itself.

OK-here comes the first troll. (Actually I am not at all right wing but neither is Tom Harris).

Whether Don agrees with it or not, the issue of claimants choosing welfare dependency as a “career option” concerns many and it is not going to go away. I can therefore assure him that his stance on this is not a vote winner and that in the apocalyptic post-election world next year his party’s welfare policy will not be as it is now or as he would wish it to be.

I completely disagree with Harris on the moral issues he raises- teenage sex is wrong etc. Individual morality and the actions that follow from it are none of his business and no business of the state. And no blame attaches to the teenage mothers who choose to have children to better their personal circumstances.

If you want to allocate blame, it lies with the bleeding-hearted legislators who evolved a welfare system that permits them to so choose and the solution is to change it.

OK Third troll.

While I disagree with alot of what he says, I do not believe he is wholly wrong to address teenage pregnancy as a moral question. This is not about precocious developement or young people getting laid. In fact sex has nothing to do with the morality of it. What is signifcant is this:

a) Pregnany – more than at any time in our history – is a choice and not an act of god.
b) When you get pregnant – and decide to go through with it- you are creating another human being, with thoughts and feelings and the capacity to suffer.

I am 23 and I do not plan to have kids any time soon – quite simply because I am not prepared to make the lifestyle sacrifices necessary to make good job of it. In other words< I am aware that my attitude and my general circumstances are such that procreating would be inimical to the wellbeing of the person that I create. When people refuse to make such judgements – or make such judgements in ignorance of all that is obvious, this becomes an issue of morality.

Pagar: ‘I completely disagree with Harris on the moral issues he raises- teenage sex is wrong etc. Individual morality and the actions that follow from it are none of his business and no business of the state.’

This could do with some unpicking. Yes sex is indeed simply a matter for the individual. However pregnancy/procreation is a completely different matter. It is not simply an ‘action that follows’. It is a choice, and one that affects others.

But, but, but……Mr Tom Harris is living off the state himself. Only Instead of getting pregnant, he became a politician and got on the biggest gravy train going.

He receives a salary, paid for by the tax payer. He receives an expense account, paid for the tax payer which, as we have seen , is abused regularly by politicians of all parties. He gets a travel allowance, paid for the tax payer. He will get a gold plated pension, paid for the tax payer when he retires. Mr Harris is a welfare queen, just like all other politicians. The state even pays for a second home for most of these hypocrites.

He sounds like the typical hypocrite that makes up most of the Tory parliamentary party. Attacking welfare scrounges ,while lazing around Westminster for the best part of 30 years scrounging off the state. If you don’t like people living off the state, then don’t do it yourself.

“Happy to have the debate, but I’m old fashioned and think that debates about policy ought to involve things like evidence and talking to the people who are affected.”

Ah the mocking tone, a good start. The evidence you presented does not actually make any point, the later commenter highlights that single parents include widows and divorcees. You are taking a position then bringing some superfluous evidence in to try and bolster than pre-determined position. A Teenage mother of sixteen is vastly different to a 35 year old divorcee.

I am a lefty, I grew up in poverty, my mother was a single parent only just out of her teens; you can ‘listen’ to people all you want, but do you honestly believe that there are not young girls willing to get pregnant to get a life on benefits?

I know there is, they are my friends, my sister’s friends, my neighbours etc.

Becoming a parent is a CHOICE, there is a responsibility for that choice, that responsibility is now removed if there is a clear benefits to having a child such as a council flat etc. There must be at least some questioning about whether the willingness to ‘support’ people is actually making the problem worse?

I don’t have the answers, I don’t agree with some of the ones Harris has offered. By it is not right-wing reactionaries who think this is a problem, working class left-wingers do too…

Having a kid to play the benefits system is wrong, like anything that aims to cheat the system.

Marcus if your going to use anecdotal evidence to support your arguments thats fine, but teenage mothers don’t stay teenagers forever, so whats your point?

Don has provided evidence (based on research) you have provided nothing. I also have an anecdote, I know an individual who had a child at seventeen and many years later after gaining a degree is now a manager at my local careers service. Harris has an anecdote about people he doesn’t know and never spoken too, standing outside Tower records in Glasgow dressed for a night out and pushing a pram and who he believes were fifteen, not that he knows their age.

Sadly you don’t even have an anecdote just a opinion based on nothing, other than hearsay and gossip that is doing the rounds in your neighbourhood.

Having a child when you are a teenager may not be desireable (this is where my moral judgement kicks in, I disapprove), but it does not automatically lead to a lifetime of welfare dependency.

Moral Judgements are fine, damning people to hell for eternity which Harris is doing is not on.

The only reason this brings out the trolls is because they’re still obsessed with what the US refers to as ‘welfare moms’ – the same old meme of ‘having a kid to jump the housing queue’ that’s been doing the rounds for the last 30 years (along with the obsession with the undeserving poor). These days, both the Tories and the New Labour have vied to see who can come up with the more punitive welfare ‘reforms’ based on that idea. Regardless of the circumstances and reasons why a young woman decides to have a child, and whether she’s working or not, ‘The Taxpayer’ will end up paying child benefit. If a lone/teen single mother is lucky enough to get affordable childcare and a job (or find a partner who’ll provide for the family), then they’re off the books. Meanwhile, the right also end up resisting decent sex education and the right to choose abortion, which leads us back to where we started.

Phew – Cheers Don!

Any more of this and Mr Harris might have put me out of a job.

Reuben: “However pregnancy/procreation is a completely different matter. It is not simply an ‘action that follows’. It is a choice, and one that affects others.”

I agree entirely, and the one most affected is the child. I wasn’t arguing for choice without responsibility- it is the current system that makes that possible.

How promising is it for the future well being of any child if it is conceived born and nurtured not for itself but for the associated goodies that come with it?

He sounds like the typical hypocrite that makes up most of the Tory parliamentary party,…

Good old Sally , if she had a brain she would be dangerous as it is she is oddly comforting

“Good old Sally , if she had a brain she would be dangerous as it is she is oddly comforting”

I’m still convinced she’s a troll, I’ve read communist publications with less bile and ignorance.

“He sounds like the typical hypocrite that makes up most of the Tory parliamentary party. Attacking welfare scrounges ,while lazing around Westminster for the best part of 30 years scrounging off the state. If you don’t like people living off the state, then don’t do it yourself.”

LMAO! Good one!

Well, Tom Harris was loudly supported across the blogosphere by Tories, especially on ConHome where they were speculating when he’d cross over to their bench.

Tells you all you need to know really. He may as well join the party of Nadine Dorries – he’d feel right at home. Oh and Frank Field too.

Tom’s post is a deliberate provocation. It is part of an audience building strategy learned at the feet of Iain Dale, the blogging expert. It is “Morality” and it is “Anecdote” but like Iain Dale’s outpourings it is also very wrong. Very wrong indeed.

I’m an ex teenage mother. With a PhD, house with no mortgage and a fantastic 14 year old daughter.

I suggest that the trolls have no idea what it’s like being a teenage mother and judge on anecdotal data.

Oh, and my parents were old working class – shipyards and coalmines.

Tells you all you need to know really. He may as well join the party of Nadine Dorries – he’d feel right at home. Oh and Frank Field too.

Chuck in Gisela Stewart would you…

Newmania.

Are you denying that Tory politicians take millions of pounds from the tax payer while at the same time criticising other people who scrounge off the state? No wonder there is a list as long as the M1 of Tory candidates just wetting themselves at getting the chance to suck on the teat of government.

Of course, this should not surprise us. The right wing establishment love scrounging off the state. The Royal family live off the state. The big landowners live off the tax payers. Farmers are the biggest welfare queens going. The military live off the tax payer, the police, lawyers, judges all scrounging off the state. .

Under Clinton there was research on poverty which came up with the following
80% of the poor left school with a leaving certificate or were married before 20 yrs and had children out of wedlock. Those who left school with a leaving certificate , married after 20 years of age and waited to be married before they had children , less than 20% were poor.
Therefore persuading people to obtain a school leaving certificate, waiting until they are married to have children and marrying after the age of 20 is an effective way of reducing poverty.
Poverty is earning less than 40-60% of the median wage.

It is much easier to under go the training and the high quality work experience if one does not have to look after children or are not married. On the construction industry one often has to move around the country. Obtaining high quality experience by working on major projects is very important to achieving good pay. The first 5 years of training in a hospital for a doctor involves long hours. Those working for the government may be able to obtain flexible working. However, if one is working on a construction project several miles from home one cannot just leave early; especially if one is involved in a critical operation such as moving a large steel beam into place on top of a pier of a bridge. Nowadays there are far fewer 9- 5:30pm jobs which are only 0.5 hours commute from home; especially well paid ones. The ability to change one’s plans for the good of the job is often important.

24. Leigh has obviously done well. However, if one wants to reduce the pay gap between men and women , ensuring women obtain high level education/training and the all important high experience for the first 5-7 years of the career is vitally important; especially if women are to move into the careers previously dominated by men- medicine, .law, international engineering, The Police , Foreign Office ,Armed Forces , flying, hotel management , tourism, international business.
Sometimes when the travelling is so continuous one can wake up and not remember which country one is in !

So rather saying what is right and wrong; it may be better if the government pointed out the harsh economic realities. If the teenagers waited till they had received an education/training and obtained a few years of good work experience and were married before they had children, they would have a significantly higher chance of being materialy better off.

Sally, I loathe the Tories as much as the next man – assuming the next man is not Newmania – but your arguements that MPs are ‘living off the state’ can be just as easily be extended to nurses, teachers, social workers, civil servants, firefighters, etc. and are pretty much the same proposed by right-wing libertarians.

MP’s are EMPLOYED by the state: they might do a lousy job, but it’s still a JOB and frankly I’d prefer them to make their money from the state than whatever other corporate interests they have.

That said, Harris is a bully and a fuck-nugget.

Shatterface

The money politicians get payed if you add up all the extras…. Expenses, travel, second homes, gold plate pensions, is more than a job. Nurses & teachers are worth 10 mps, but they get a fraction of the money, and no extras on top. Politicians are scrounging off the state, which is bad enough, but many of them, particulary on the Right are already very wealthy.

But for them to then complain about others living off the state is just such a sack of shit.

MP’s on the Right may be more wealthy than those on the Left but I don’t think that extra money is being paid by the state – unless payment for being in opposition is higher than for being in government.

(Though this might explain Brown’s determination to alienate Labour voters.)

29. Sally . No salaries for MPs- looks lik a return to the nineteenth century when only those with private incomes could afford to be MPs . Tennant farmers, bomb disposal personnel , air sea rescue crew scrounging off the state ? Lambing on a hillside in early Spring is such a relaxing past time – especially the long hours in cold, wet and windy conditions in the early hours of the morning! How many awards for bravery have been awarded to air sea rescue crews and bomb disposal crews over the last 50 years?

Some really really poor quotes and knee jerks here. This starts with comment 1 labelling anyone who disagrees with Don Paskini’s rant as a Tory Troll. Sunny’s isn’t much better. Lets be open to ideas and discussion.

Tom’s post was “courageous” because of the vilification he will receive from those colleagues that decide his career. Don’s rant is badly written and adds little to the discussion. Anyway, why discuss here and not on Tom’s site where comments would be exposed to a wider audience.

Excellent post!

# We have a tight comments policy aimed at fostering constructive debate.
# We believe in free speech but not your right to abuse our space.
# Abusive, sarcastic or silly comments may be deleted.
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Typical nu labour website. Don’t debate openly, just ban anything that doesn’t fit in with your mindset.

I personally think Tom was right to bring what most right minded people have been thinking for some years, but were bullied into keeping quiet. maybe we can have some more honest posters like him to come forward.

It seems to me that the more people we have supported by the government (both MP’s and benefits claimers) the more trouble we have – so lets move towards a smaller government which privatises everything including looking after the sick, old and weary to the charities and then everyone will be happier. Much fewer scrounging MPs and pregnant teenagers.

Problem Solved!

“Typical nu labour website. Don’t debate openly, just ban anything that doesn’t fit in with your mindset.”

Well then fuck off somewhere else troll if you don’t like it.

Tom’s post was “courageous” because of the vilification he will receive from those colleagues that decide his career

Yeah, just don’t let facts stand in the way of demonising a group of women who are already crapped on constantly by the Daily Mail brigade! Tom Harris MP is soooo brave!

Surely it is irrelevant how enthusiastic a girl is about educating herself and about getting a job once she has put herself in a position where she cannot do either for several years. Words to a pollster are cheap. Child care is expensive. A mother is entirely dependent on others either for financial support or for the care of her child while she supports herself, and for a teenage mother those others are unlikely to include the child’s father.

Look, why don’t we just get back to good old Tory “Family Victorian values” and stick these little harlots in the Workhouse to repent their sins. And I still notice Newmania still preaching his – girls and women are the gatekeepers of members of his sex.

Don, teenage girls get pregnant accidentally .They fall over and land awkwardly on an erect penis and ,what with all the confusion , over a five minute period , before you know it the rest of us are buying them a flat and the rest. How pretty is their wide eyed amazement as they survey their nice new kitchen whilst un-admitted boyf chips in

You see, it takes two to make a baby not purely an errect disembodied penis lingering around with a council flat under its foreskin.

40 – Surely it is irrelevant how enthusiastic a girl is about educating herself and about getting a job once she has put herself in a position where she cannot do either for several years. Words to a pollster are cheap. Child care is expensive. A mother is entirely dependent on others either for financial support or for the care of her child while she supports herself, and for a teenage mother those others are unlikely to include the child’s father.

Excuse me, but why is it purely the girls’ job for ‘enthusiastic education of herself’ – Oh look we have the invisible inseminators again.

And if it is “unlikely to include the child’s father” in support of the child – then why?

If you want to allocate blame, it lies with the bleeding-hearted legislators who evolved a welfare system that permits them to so choose and the solution is to change it.

What the fuck are you doing using the rhetoric right of the American Right? Have you even an ounce of self-awareness?

Sunny, I didn’t say Tom’s blog was Brave, I said it was “courageous”. That is “Yes Minister” speak for suicidal.

There is a lot of sense in what he says although a shortage of answers. He is driven by a concern for the mother and the child. That is what differentiates him from the Daily Mail.

@ Sally (37)

Blimey, that’s a bit ignorant, isn’t it? I would peg myself as a free-market, social libertarian (thus, right-wing, by your standards, I suspect), and I read a wide spectrum of political blogs and sites from all creeds and colours – some I agree with, many I don’t. Just because I disagree with them (and occasionally post to say so), doesn’t mean that I or others like me should ‘fuck off’. How else are you ever going to broaden your experiences or opinions – or more yet, stimulate debate – if you don’t read what other people have to say, regardless of your ‘faction’?

For my part, I think Tom Harris has a bloody good point. I disagree on his bringing morality into it (and for suggesting that people don’t know any better – that’s naive), but I would urge you to consider the point he inadvertantly makes – the welfare state is broken and open to abuse. It is not just the current administration that is to blame, the previous Conservative government did little to help the situation either. We need to tackle the culture of welfare ghettos, and there is no clear and easy solution. The difficult thing will be for a government to implement what will be seen as ‘nasty’ policies. Fact is that the current status-quo must be challenged. Tom Harris recognises, in exasperation, that no one is doing anything about it, and his frustration is understandable.

Basementcat – You’ve made an accusation, now substantiate it.

Basementcat – You’ve made an accusation, now substantiate it.

James – where is the accusation?

Well I live on a council estate and it’s full of umarried mothers living on benefits.It is how they get housed and no need to work,and they are quite happy to tell you that,who’s going to turf them out.If you middle class twits had to actually live on an estate like this instead of your respectable suburbia you too would be filled with resentment.We who have to live on these estates and still work hate it,but dare not say a word for fear of retaliation.
You who can afford to drive your kids to school have no clue to what living in my world is like.It’s ignorant people like yourselves that encourage this behavior,you may be able to afford to keep them on your wage/tax,I can’t.

and because I disagree I’m a troll am I?how liberal.

Jaffee, S.R., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T.E., Belsky, J., Silva, P.A. (2001)
Why are children born to teen mothers at risk for adverse outcomes in young adulthood? Results from a 20-year longitudinal study.
Development and Psychopathology. 13: 377-397.

Read, inwardly digest and then come back with some reasons why society should not be concerned about some teen mothers. It is a problem that can have devastating effects on the future life of the child. It should be addressed in any responsible society. There may good reason for us to intervene in the life of the child and we should be looking to see if there is.

@ James (45) If you’d kindly point me to my accusation (because I don’t remember making one) I’ll be happy to clarify my point.

@ David (47) – I won’t pretend I grew up on an estate, but don’t think that means I don’t understand what it’s like. An ex-boyfriend of mine had plenty of experience from that walk of life, and believe me, I got to see what it can do. His Grandmother had a real work ethic, and even in her elder years still got out to do cleaning work for old clients, long after she’d stopped working in ‘proper’ jobs, but she had lived in council housing all her life. His Mother, on the other hand, was only too happy to scrounge off the state. If she could avoid it, she would.

Now what I can’t understand is how a culture can arise whereby people collect their benefits and don’t ask where the money comes from. Surely, if you knew this money came from other people’s taxes, you would feel some drive – let’s call it a moral imperative – to take as little as possible and find a job so that you could pay some of it back?

Perhaps that’s hopelessly idealist of me. Perhaps that’s my middle-class upbringing. Perhaps that’s because I believe in equivalent exchange – to receive something you must give something of equal value.

Back on topic, though, there’s a reason the age of consent is 16. Before then we aren’t mature enough to make those decisions on our own. Having a child is a massive decision, and it should be done for the purpose of bringing life into the world, and because you believe you can give that child hope and a future. Bringing a child into the world so that you can claim some money off the state is morally bankrupt; yet if the system is there, people will do it. And for some I don’t doubt it is done out of desperation, because it seems like such an easy way out. It isn’t, but a 13 year old girl isn’t going to know that. And that’s where Tom Harris has it right.

BC – – the welfare state is broken and open to abuse.

“How else are you ever going to broaden your experiences or opinions”

Oh please, spare me the moral claptrap. . People like you don’t come on sites you disagree with to broaden your outlook. You and your troll friends come on to annoy people. And then, when you get told to piss off you get all self righteous.

Let us assume good faith, Sally. We should see how an explanation of how a system designed to help those in need helping perhaps those most in need in the country (very young parents of infants) is an evidence of that system failing to fulfil it’s function before we dismiss the libs. It’s perfectly possible that it’s simply been forgotten that outside of their merry middle class enclave the mixed economy being an utter disaster isn’t a self-evident truth.

This is known as ‘cocooning’.

James – there is so much evidence for that – if you can’t se it – please have a look at the Sun or The Daily Mail – its the only thing they’re good at – pointing out whats wrong with the system.

I…lol…What?? Are you joking, or trolling me, or what?

47, and 48. David in a few years people will be listening to you. When the markets make an assessment of our total debt( national , corporate and personal ) and our problems with paying it off without the advantage of N Sea oil the who knows what will happen? Already a £1Trillion has been taken out of the UK by international investors.

Ok, well here’s one reason the welfare state is broken:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3421141/heres-why-so-many-people-in-this-country-are-on-welfare.thtml

The Tories started doing it during the eighties when they used incapacity benefit to fudge the unemployment figures, and Labour have perpetuated and built on their mistake.

Have a read and tell me it’s working as intended – because reading that I can fully understand why Tom Harris is angry.

I am NOT pleased with Mr Harris. He has twice spiked posts in a thread he started on his blog – apparently on the specious grounds that they were “factually wrong” – they were completely accurate – or “too offensive” – ie inconvenient to Tom Harris.

He thus allows only one side of an argument to be put – the one convenient to Mr Harris’s original point of view.

It’s not how one expects an MP to behave.

I am NOT best pleased with Mr Harris. He has twice spiked posts in a thread he started on his blog – apparently on the specious grounds that they were “factually wrong” – they were completely accurate – or “too offensive” – ie inconvenient to Tom Harris.

He thus allows only one side of an argument to be put – the one convenient to Mr Harris’s original point of view.

This in the face of therefore unrefuted claims that no modern christian atrocities are cited (unrefuted because Tom Harris censors them). No doubt “I was a Christian, and involved in a very evangelical church…” had some bearing on that.

If you are going to throw a subject open for public debate (in this case by ridiculing some complainants to the ASA), it behoves you to allow said public debate.

It’s not how one expects an MP to behave. The man is a disgrace to his office.

Firstly I would like to allow everyone into some priveleged information. I was a childline counsellor for nearly three years and often took calls from pegnant teenage girls. Most of them had not intended to get pregnant and were upset, confused or scared. Many had not been properly educated about the facts of contraception, some thought for example that you couldn’t get pregnant if you did ‘it’ standing up, or if you went for a wee afterwards. Those that did say that they had got pregnant deliberately, and wanted a council flat, tended to be escaping from horrific situations. These were actually in the minority, but included girls forced to live with sexually abusive relatives, physically abusive parents, those ignored, neglected or used as carers for their parents other children. The facts of life for some of these young women were that having a child of their own was the only means of escape for them. Should we not be looking at WHY having a baby is a better means of escape than the state can provide through support?If social services were better funded and staffed for example, or if womens shelters were easliy accessed and more numerous.

Seriously, if living at home is the good life, with your parents properly caring for you in a happy environment, why the hell would you want a council flat? If you genuinely feel you can make a success of your life in the world of work and make a valuable contribution to society, why desire benefits?

Secondly, I would like to provide support for an assertion made earlier, that teenage mums were more likely to value education and want a better job for themselves after having a baby. I fell pregnant when I was 17 years old. I stayed at home with my daughter for two years, as I had read about attachments being formed in the first two years of life. Up until my pregnancy, I was directionless, did not care about anything or anyone and was taking drugs. With my pregnancy, I suddenly realised that my life was worth something and that I wanted to better myself for the sake of my baby. I went to college, then to university and now I occupy a position working in a school in a deprived area, and am paid as a qualified professional on the same level as the teachers. I think my life would have turned out very differently had I not had my daughter, I believe I would have ended up addicted to drugs or similarly ruined.

I have many, many friends who were also teenage mums. Not a single one of them is now unemployed, most of them have gone to college or university. They are probation officers, forensic scientists, social workers, pastoral care workers, teachers, nurses, child care workers, support workers and many other things besides. Are we worthless? Were the benefits we were paid for the first couple of years wasted? Had I stayed a cleaner, would I have had the time to qualify?
The next chapter of my life is that I have been in a stable relationship for seven years, having refused to marry the abusive father of my daughter. I have recently had another baby, and have gone back to work after eleven months. My son is ten months old and has been very agitated since I went back to work. He has gone from a calm baby to a distressed crying baby. I feel now that Bowlby (sociologist, 1950’s) was right and that it is possibly a negative thing to not provide a baby with a secure attachment, a stable carer.
Maybe society has it the wrong way round. Maybe children should be cared for by a parent instead of people rushing out to work. Maybe raising a child should be seen as a valuable job in itself, and supported as such. Perhaps the problem is not the age of the mum’s, but their parenting skills. Selfishness is not a trait which works with being a parent, and this is something which needs to be understood.

Perhaps instead of looking to support the capitalist ideals of having as many people working as possible, it is time to re-evaluate and look to train young people in caring for others and respecting life. Then, maybe the cycle would be broken and their children would be well raised and educated enough to contribute to society.

Perhaps the solution to this problem is to start to see the raising of the future generation as a job in which you must perform well, try hard, show love and do well. If a parent is well supported, and educated, the benefits which you so resent paying could be seen as wages. If a parent is cruel, heartless, selfish or useless they not only loose the right to keep their child but also the right to be paid.

I know that there will probably be an outcry of ‘why should they get to stay at home whilst some mums go back to work’?. I would answer you with this, if I could stay at home and focus my love and attention on my baby, I would. If society valued all that good mothers do as actual work, I would not feel badly about staying at home and raising my son .

People need to stop for a moment and realise that these teenage mums are not monsters but young girls. They do not meet at midnight to cackle over stealing peoples taxes. They do not spend their days rolling in flowers. As a general rule young mums from poor socio-economic backgrounds have tough lives.

Instead of blindly judging, maybe research, talk to young mums, look at policy, education and improving young peoples’ situation to make there be better options for their future.
Maybe show young mums how to raise valuable members of society, and within a generation the problem will disappear.