A typical DM 'story'.

I am puzzled by the tone of your post, Sel. I make no bones about my opinion of the DM, which is not a criticism of people who choose to read it. And, yes, I am accusing the girl of lying, or else she is the world's most wonderful manager. Nobody has yet explained how she lives on £516 a month. Do you find that credible?

Without knowing her exact outgoings, how can we judge? Her net income is not dissimilar to that of my DD who is also bringing up two children without financial assistance from the father. Admittedly she doesn't live in London, but she has the mortgage and council tax to pay and has to run a car for work. She manages OK and the girls are well fed and cared for - she does have savings but I've no idea how much.

Yes, I'll stick my neck out - I do think it's credible.

We are all entitled to our own opinion. I have no wish to argue with anybody.

I'm more interested in the identity of Liz Jones' rock star

No indeed, Greatnan, neither have I - but as the main point of the OP seemed to be that the figures didn't add up, I felt it needed pointing out that not everyone necessarily agrees with that.

Greatnan I am puzzled too. Your origional post questioned this story that was reported in the DM - they'd picked it up from Closer magazine. You seem to imply that anyone who finds any credibility in the story is somehow 'a typical DM reader who can't do Maths' As what this girl has said in two publications you now deem lies, I'm not sure where we go from there

merlot I love Liz Jones, please don't tell me the ROCKSTAR is a figment of her imagination - to keep me buying The Mail on Sunday' ??

She loves cats and all animals so I'll forgive her anything

found it interesting Greatnan amazing that she was so proud of all her benefits and felt she really deserved to be kept by other people, there does not seem any pride in people like that.

Amazing that she could save so much to waste at Xmas.

I think the point being really that it is way too easy to bring children into the world and have the working public pay for them, there is not stigma or shame in having kids out of wedlock anymore.

Must admit she was doing very nicely and as she said why would she want to work for minimum wage and be worse off??

I am sure there are hundreds like her.

also have to read about Liz Jones each week, cant imagine why!!

the rubbish she spiels out, so hard up and yet she had to have designer this and that quite entertaining!!

I'm sure Liz Jones keeps her job because of all the head scratching about her circumstances. I got fed up with her constant wingeing when she lived on Exmoor. No wonder the locals were glad to see the back of her.

My money's on Midge Ure....

Sel - please do not put words in my mouth. There is no way I am being dragged into a futile argument.

The thing that annoys me about the DM is that they have all the big Shock,Horror, headlines but they never seem to follow any of them up. After this article there should surely be another one in January to find out exactly she was able to buy for Christmas and how much she spent. As it is she will just go down in everyone's memory as that woman who was getting all that money.

I always read the I now. For a start it is so cheap, and it has such a broad spectrum of political views. I may violently disagree with some of the contributors, but it is always interesting to read what they say and try to understand why they say it.

Greatnan what words did I put into your mouth?

sel i can not resist lurking on post when i see your name .a no i dont comment on any ,but you make me

london I am laughing...go on then
what do you think? Your input would be valuable, but you do have to temper that with knowledge of the london housing market!! [grim][fgrim]

I see I posted [grim][grim] in relation to the london housing market, a freudian slip...

For london smiley face and a wink !!

sel the paper i read was the news of the world

Great london when I first learned to drive I made an announcement, I would 'go to church' under my own steam. I used to go and buy a copy of the NOW - it was banned in our house - and I would sit and read it and then drive back home and attempt to discuss the gospel. happy days

Single mothers of young children are in a difficult position. They are damned if they do work and damned if they don't. The truth is that if a young woman in this situation gets a job, she then has the issue of child care. Not all of them have the luxury of a nearby gran. Availability of child care varies hugely from one area to another and all-day care can be expensive. It's quite possible that she would be better off staying at home with her children at least until they go to school. The children would surely benefit from having their mum around. Once they are at school, there is the worry about how to manage during the school holidays.

We're losing the plot here. Anno much as it may pain you, read the report. This 20 year old girl is telling everyone, way to go..forget school, forget anything else, just get pregnant. I'm waiting for Greatnan to prove this is wrong.

What I am really saying is, don't use this one case to condemn all single mothers on benefits.

Anno you just made what was to be my next post.

My rant post was about the poor quality of the DMs journalism as an example of the tabloids, not specifically about its political stance. Although my views on that are probably very apparent.

Sel what I suggest Greatnan might have meant by your quote "Greatnan do you know the facts simply don't add up?" is that.
The DM headline and the actual article underneath that headline contradict each other. The article said the girl PLANS to buy 20 presents.
The headline said she had bought them. There is a big difference there. It seems The DM itself couldn't get the facts right. More crap journalism.

Greatnan forgive me if I haven't got that right.
Sel See my original post on this.

whoa..surely this issue is the amount this girl is being given from the taxpayer...i have no way of knowing if the amounts reported are true. Greatnan says they aren't based on the fact it's reported by the DM. I'd just like some sort of clarity here.

I wasn't going to bother with this thread but as it goes on I will put my 2 penneth in.

Greatnan you clearly meant to raise 2 issues with this thread. By heading it a 'Typical D.M. 'Story', asking what was the motivation for them running the story and saying they found somebody to tick all the boxes, an unemployed, non white,single mother living on benefits, you were clearly tantamount to inferring bigotry from the D.M.

The second point you raised was the fact you didn't agree with financial aspects stated in the article. At one point in the thread you accused the mother of lying.

Surely, as the D.M. clearly states the article was taken from 'The Closer Magazine' would it not be that magazine you would take to task, unless ofcourse the article was not the core issue for the thread.

Do people really think that every word is only written by the journalists belonging to that paper. Ofcourse not, they all 'lift' stories from others. If they didn't every article would be an exclusive.

Nellie

You mentioned the word 'spinning'. When you mentioned the D.M. printed a headline '£93,000,00, the price of piece of mind'. it gave the impression that was what the D.M. thought we need financially. It was a poll carried out by Legal and General Insurance, asking people in various parts of Britain 'How much would you need to feel safe and comfortable'. Therefore I question why you thought it was worthy of mention. It could easily have been a report in any paper and probably will be.

Sel

You raised perfectly good questions and made reasonable comments.

Getting back to basics, the DM journalists and others interview people and then print a selected and distorted version of the conversation, which suits their paper's agenda. So someone interviews a young woman who may or may not be telling the complete truth about her circumstances. Closer then publishes their own take on this and the DM pick it up. Not good journalism and no reason why we should believe any of the "facts" printed.
I have posted before on another thread, so sorry if I am boring any of you:
I was once standing next to DH when a Mail on Sunday journalist rang him to "check a fact" about a shock horror story they were running the following day "XXX will be a burglers charter". DH explained the facts and said at the end of the conversation "Well if that is what you are intending to print, it will be a lie". And of course they printed their lies as there would have been no "story" if they had printed the facts and there was a powerful group in the background pushing for bad press on the issue.
On another occasion the school where I was chair of governors was in the local news about our attempts to reduce teenage pregnancies which had been high. Cue journalists (if not from Closer it was something similar) to harass the school staff and kids at the school gate, tour the estate trying to interview 14 year olds in the street about their sex lives. Result, nasty story about the area being the teenage pregnancy capital of europe or some such rubbish.
The DM story is almost certainly a distorted version of an original interview. The quality of the information gathering in the interview is unlikely to have been rigorous. There is no point in giving it any credence or even debating the "facts" contained in this story. It will unverified hearsay, mixed with fiction.