Holding their hands out

The Swansea Evening Post reports that "a pregnant mum-of- four who pleaded with the council to end her overcrowding hell has hit back at critics who branded her family irresponsible spongers".

They are 23 and 21. "Their calls for help to find a more suitable council home for their three daughters, aged five, four and one, and son, aged three, have provoked a fierce backlash from indignant Post readers."

"I don't know how we're going to cope when the new baby arrives," says the unmarried mother.

There was some brisk reader reaction.

• Iain McCallum, from Gorseinon, wrote: "Sorry as I am about their plight, if you are unemployed and living in these circumstances, stop breeding."
  
  
• Another wrote: "I sympathise with Miss Leyman for having to give up work through ill health, but there is no excuse for her partner not to find a job."
  
  
• Richard Burkinshaw, from Swansea, said: "If you can't afford kids, don't have them. Why should my taxes bail you out?"
  
  
• Another reader added: "Stop forcing us to pay for your lack of responsibility and get jobs."

Would these views get a hearing on the BBC? Among the chattering classes? From Cameron's Conservatives? One suspects not.

Thus does the taxpayers' voice usually go unheard.