No Dead Child Left Under-Utilised

Some slight unease has become apparent among the Deputy Conservatives following the Bullingdon Club's comments on the Mick Philpott case. It's rather reminiscent of the Foreign Office wagging a finger at Saudia Arabia for sentencing someone to a life of paralysis before nodding through the latest arms shipment; but it's unease nevertheless. Daveybloke has backed his best chum's speech implying that Philpott's major crime was not the death of his children or domestic violence, or even conducting a sex life that would do credit to a minister of state, but the fact that he was claiming social security benefits. Apparently this is done by significant numbers of persons as a lifestyle choice rather than as a necessity; let alone as the sort of necessity that might have resulted from anything the Bullingdon Club has done. Daveybloke, of course, is no novice at the employment of dead children in scoring cheap political points; his own late son Ivan was compulsorily recruited to back up the sweet nothings which Daveybloke burbled about the National Health Service before turning Twizzler Lansley loose on it. That sort of thing was tasteful enough for the Deputy Conservatives during the good old days; but a few more casual humiliations later, and with another local election massacre looming, a few of them have been making disgruntled noises. They haven't voted through the welfare cuts, the restriction of legal aid, the Spare Room Subsidy Reduction™ and all those other prole-bashing measures just so that George Osborne can come along and bring the whole enterprise into disrepute.