Dear Holly,
Having been happily married for over a year now, myself and my husband were considering having a baby. That is, until the shocking news that child benefit is to stop for those on the highest tax brackets. What I want to know is how David Cameron can sleep at night knowing that we middle class voters are being forced to the brink of destitution. Why should we have to subsidise feckless navvies and their fat, tracksuited girlfriends who’d rather watch Tricia than do a hard days’ work, while our benefits are cruelly taken away from us? Just because we’re rich doesn’t mean we don’t have the right to sponge off the state too. I am so cross about this. Do you think I should raise this as a hot topic at my yoga retreat this weekend?
Celia
Windsor
Dear Celia,
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘child benefit’. If you ask me, there aren’t any benefits attached to having a baby whatsoever, or at least none that you can’t get from elsewhere for less money and hassle. For example, my pet goldfish, Graham, spends all day in his tank doing jobbies and staring at things. That’s pretty much what babies do, except babies also make lots of noise, and you can’t flush them down the toilet when they annoy you. My teacher told us that goldfish have a three-second memory, so that if you tell them something important, they’ll forget it almost instantly. I think the same is true of babies, because when me and Ellie Shearsmith drew a moustache on her baby brother, we told him to keep quiet but no sooner had we turned our backs then he started wailing and got us in deep trouble. If I were you, I’d stop worrying about babies and how to pay for them, and get down the local funfair to win yourself a fish. You can have our fish tank if you like; Graham’s somewhere in the sewers now, so we’ve got one going spare.
Hope that helps!
Holly
