Total revulsion

When the converse is also true - the feeling that there are some threads that I dare not express an opinion on, is just as depressing.

There are some news items mentioned that I choose not to look at or have conversations about and others that I want to discuss or debate. It's my prerogative, and the day I log in to Gransnet feeling I have to engage in any particular subject that has been posted is the day I'll stop bothering.

It's a thread on a forum not a debate in Parliament and therefore as all good conversations go ,it wandered. I certainly have no intention of looking at a multiple execution just because someone mentions it. I don't want it in my memory bank. If people read the DM or don't read it's their choice. . I read the Times but don't expect others to read it if I mention something I've seen there

Well, not having seen these images, I have not reacted. And I am certainly not going to go looking.
Why is the thread "ridiculous" absent? Because it has wandered away from my original post? Isn't that what threads do though?
Just as some posters will inevitably bring the subject round to tenants in common and house ownership versus care home fees, others will bring in the Daily Mail. Doesn't mean we have to join in. With no experience of either I couldn't comment.

Yes, that surprised me
You have to be sorry for the defence barristers - they were on a hiding to nothing trying to make Philpott out to be a good father.

There was little reaction from anyone on here - DM readers or not!

But surely it was wrong to make any mention of people having large families on this thread? Was that not opportunistic? This pair are hardly representative of people with many children.

I sometimes think that there is nothing that will shock DM readers - there was little reaction here to their graphic images of men being executed.

Why don't we have a tearing the hair out emoticon for when threads become as ridiculous as this one has?

stansgran I don't know whether weeping is a sign of guilt. Perhaps unless it has happened to you it is not possible to know how you might feel? I do agree that it appears his main interest was in getting the benefits. I just heard a reporter, who knew him some time ago, say that he loved his children and appeared to be good with them. Yes, neglect is abuse but would be very difficult to prove. I hope they don't blame anyone for this.

Am I the only person who feels that the weeping on the news is almost tantamount to a confession of guilt? I felt no surprise at the conviction and I felt that the "father"didnt want to keep his children he wanted to keep "his"child benefits. I read the times and it had a comment about AW that the children did not interact well with him.Esther Rantzen said just now that neglect is a form of abuse and difficult to pinpoint.

On PM it's just been reported that the children were bullied at school following the tv programme. You know very well that that programme and the DM article have agendas of knocking welfare benefit claimants. Do you really think we should give that sort of publicity to men like him? And who is protecting the children with these types of programmes? I feel the same about a lot of those parenting programmed - really exploiting children. I read the DM on line as an attempt to understand where so much of middle Britain gets its views from - its important to get other views. I still maintain that its front page today was an affront to civilised society - it's sunk lower than I ever imagined possible - and thats saying something!

Kitty I agree that it is a shame yet again to have a pop at the DM, especially as the people having a go must have read it. If no one read it it would no longer exist. I don't read a daily paper, just listen to Radio 4 and watch the evening news so I haven't seen whether what is being said is true.

I did hear World at One and didn't react the same as bluebell and didn't see AW as a hypocrit, I felt she was very restrained and careful to say that no one was to blame. I felt that she was trying to avoid any sort of witch hunt of the schools or the social services. Very dignified. I doubt if the programme opened the children to ridicule, I think it probably just showed the father for what he was. AW did comment that she felt the parents were detached from the children which was a good observation no one else seems to have made.

Please don't let this thread become a stick to beat DM readers with, either. It wasn't what it was about and I don't think bluebell's comment counts as a 'meander'. That really does cheapen the loss of those young lives.

Thank you, Bluebell - I found the attempt to use this tragic story as a stick to beat large families contemptible.

Total revulsion - well that applies to any decent person's view of the DM's front page today and their treatment of the story - bracketing this case with all people in receipt of benefits . Come on you DM apologists on GN - justify their treatment of the story. I am actually coming round to the feeling that this paper is worse than the Sun because it pretends to be so much more

It's manslaughter as he did not intend to kill the children but to 'rescue' them - he was so clueless and utterly without any morals that they died. Channel 5 had a very good programme about it last night that highlighted this man's character. I hadn't realised he'd had tv coverage in both a Jeremy Kyle programme and another one about being a benefit scrounger. He likes young silly women whom he could control, his wife and his mistress being two examples. His mistress left him and he hoped to frame her by setting fire to his house - I also think he hoped to have the council get him bigger house. With 5 children and 3 bedrooms it must have been crowded. Sadly, his sentence won't be a big as he deserves as it was manslaughter - when he is released he will still have a huge sense of his own importance and entitlement. A thoroughly nasty peace of work.
Gracesmum a good thread ignore any negative thoughts from other people.

Butty - I know what you mean. World at 1 was interesting today - Margaret Beckett ( I think she's the local MP) said no general lessons could be drawn from such a case. But I was absolutely shocked by the hypocrisy of Ann Widdiecombe who apparently made a TV programme with the father - oh yes a really typical benefits case- and went on about the poor children when her programme ( for which she would have been handsomely paid) opened them to ridicule and publicity when they wre not able to consent and rewarded the father with the publicity he craved
The number if people being wise after the event sickens me - the schools are being sensible - the children never missed a day and were good, well behaved pupils. Everyone should just shut up - it's sad and awful but what could we possibly learn from it - except not to allow people like the father publicity.

I watched a little bit of the programme on BBC last night and if I was chatting to a neighbour over the garden wall the subject may well have come up.

moved you can add me to your minority. For the life of me I cannot understand how this man could have boasted on national telly about his lifestyle, his sordid sex life and his numerous children, whilst demanding (on a clip I saw last night) a bigger house (he actually said something like 'it's the council's responsibility to provide a house for my family), and nothing is done to investigate.

It is pretty clear that he groomed women including his wife and mistress; and I'm going to stick my neck out here and say he too was groomed - by the system.

(hug) for Butty

I am deeply saddened by this and also feel a reluctance to discuss it.
I'm not quite sure why either, but there it is.

Kitty not sure I'd want to chat about this 'over the garden wall' either. Some things are just too horrific and, one would hope, almost universal revulsion would be guaranteed. Yes, everyone can express their very own revulsion if they wish but I doubt it leads to any further understanding. I'll shut up and get off the thread.

My hairdresser watched the programme about this last night and said it was horrible.

Am I still in the minority in thinking people should be obliged control the number of children they have when we are paying the bill? This excuse for a man had 17!

Even merely expressing our horror that it has happened is a valid reason for the thread. Discussing the trial and outcome follows on from that. It is definitely "In the News".

Surely as members of society we need to understand how something like this can happen. How can we do that without talking about it?

I have been interested in this thread because there are some issues arising that are enabling me to undersand how the justice system is (or isn't) dealng with this case. I must have missed some elements of the planning that went into this offence, and now wonder why they aren't convicted of conspiracy to commit arson and reckless arson. I hope the sentences are appropriate.