In the early hours of Friday 11th May 2012 someone poured petrol through the letterbox of the Philpott household and started a fire in which six children died.

The parents were charged with murder. The murder charges were later changed to manslaughter charges. This does not mean the fire was an effort to get better housing. Recklessness and stupidity are never far away nor does it invalidate my discussion of the media response to the tragedy and the apparent manipulation of public opinion towards acceptance of marginal public spending cuts ( much less than 1% of public spending ) by demonising the poor.





I also anticipate that if found guilty the parents will be subtly presented as typical benefit claimants.

According to the Independent newspaper a woman called Carole Malone argued, on morning TV, without actually condoning the crime, that the family had brought this on themselves. She called the fire an accident (!) waiting to happen to be precise she is quoted as saying[2]

'This was an accident waiting to happen. There's a lot of resentment out there for families exactly like this, especially now, especially with the country in the state that it's in, there's not much money and people have seen families maybe like this one taking advantage.'

and added

'This family became a target a couple of years ago and I suspect they have many enemies out there because they were seen to be on benefits, they were seen to be asking for a bigger council house and I think they upset a lot of people at the time.'

When it was pointed out that the fire was confirmed as arson, not an accident the said

'I mean the culture of the family and the fact that they consistently did interviews about their situation. They did bring attention to themselves. The tragedy; this is what's happened. Six innocent children have died as a result.'

I presume Ms Malone would object if a rape victim were said to have brought the rape on themselves. However that is a side point here. Ms Malone represents a slice of public opinion that comes too close to applauding the arson simply because of who the victims were.

Suppose for a second she was trying to understand the roots of this crime. It is then perhaps poetic justice that she is receiving a similar response to the response right wingers, following riots in the 1990s made to those trying to to understand what had happened, that trying to understand was to condone.

But it is wrong to pay too much attention to Malone's statement except as examples of an attitude that considers the poor, especially benefit claimants, as life not worthy of life that considers those who have become poor as a result of the recession. Although the Independent metaphorically took Malone to pieces the article noted that she represents a prejudice growing in the UK under the impact of austerity measures that are arguably making the recession worse.

But it is also worth noting the attempt to portray a working single mother as an unemployed scrounger [7| as supporting the notion there is a deliberate campaign to present the poor as parasites living on taxpayer's money. Subtle bias is the hardest to detect and this event should raise some skepticism about media reporting.

Since the parents are presumed innocent until found guilty it is possible to argue that the fact the family had appeared on TV and had asked for a larger house directly caused some unbalanced person to start the fire, just as in the early 1990s Christian Fundamentalists set fire to a Pagan Bookshop when there was a baby sleeping in the flat above the shop. There are always those of doubtful sanity and when they do things like this they should be tried and sent to prison or to an asylum. One commentator said they blamed the government for spreading hatred of people on benefits, but the problem seems to me to have older deeper and darker roots.