CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO WORK? CLAIM BENEFITS

Unemployed scrounger Mohammed Salim is getting the state to pay for him, his wife and their eleven kids, because he can't be bothered to go to work. He quit his £27,000 job teaching maths and science three years ago and is better off claiming £29,096 a year in benefits. He devotes his time to his Islamic political party, which attacks the British government, even though this country gives his family their food, clothes and house for free. Mohammed is also busy planning his 12th baby with wife Noreen, but has no plans to get a job.

He grinned, "For many years I worked in Derby as a teacher, earning £27,000 a year, and Noreen would be at home with the kids. I would come home at weekends. Then I moved back to work in Manchester and took a pay cut to £24,000. It was a load of crap. I was teaching at a college and I'd be up at 5.30am with the kids then have to go to work. I just couldn't be arsed with sitting in traffic. I'd be sat in traffic for hours and I felt like I'd done a day's work by the time I got there, I was so stressed."

The family we're all supporting live in a comfy five-bedroom house on a quiet street in Rochdale, Gtr Manchester. They get £19,000 a year Jobseeker's Allowance, £6,600 Child Benefit, £2,496 free school meals and £1,000 Council Tax Relief. They have a minibus to swan around in, two TVs and a computer, plus a garden full of brightly-coloured toys. Noreen has never worked since marrying Mohammed when she was 16. She said, "I spend all day clearing up after the children. As soon as you pick up one pile of crisps or mop up drink, there's another."

Mohammed added, "I can't stand condoms. I used a condom once. It was awful. Never again, it's nothing like the real thing. It's up to God whether we have any more kids. It says in the Bible and the Koran to go forth and multiply, and that's what we'll do. It's Noreen, she finds me irresistible! I see my children as God's blessing, as a gift from God. Some people out there pay to have children, through IVF or surrogacy. I feel so lucky that I can have as many as I want. I want to carry on my family name and for my children and grandchildren to remember me."

He worries about how he will send his ten children to university, because it is not free. He said, "I think it's important for them to enjoy themselves and I make sure they have a good education. I don't know how we'd afford to send them to university. It's a shame really, because when I went it was free but you have to pay now. But it's in God's hands." He has no plans to go back to Pakistan despite his party's anger at British policy. He said, "I did want to move back at one point but now it is so unstable, and I don't think we would be able to have the quality of life we have here."

A neighbour in Mohammed's street said he was disgusted by the Salim family's cushy lifestyle. The married dad of four said, "I only earn £15,000 a year in a factory and my wife is a part-time cleaner. We would be better off chucking in our jobs and claiming benefits like him down the road. He used to be a teacher and it sickens me that a man can just give it up and have everything paid for by the state. It shouldn't be allowed. Why on earth is the state subsidising him to sit at home doing nothing when he could be teaching kids, paying taxes and contributing to society?" (Source: News of the World, Feb/08)