An Ethiopian family of 12 are being put up in a vast house costing the taxpayer almost £1,500-a-week just two months after arriving in Britain.
The couple and their 10 children are receiving a staggering £1,460-a-week housing benefit from the cash-strapped Tower Hamlets council in London - Britain's poorest borough.
The jobless family - who will also be receiving other handouts such as unemployment and child benefits - only arrived in London from Africa in the past few weeks.
It is yet another example of taxpayers having to pick up the bill for families to stay in vast houses in the capital.
And it comes as it emerged benefits payouts in Tower Hamlets have cost the taxpayer a mammoth £223million in just one year.
The Ethiopians, who are believed to be asylum-seekers, will cost taxpayers £76,000 if they are allowed to stay in the property for 12 months.
They received a weekly sum of £1,462,90 on March 4, according to the council's housing benefits claims department.
Another nine families in the borough received between £590 and £613 in the same week and the last annual figures show 10 families getting between £20,600 and £38,300 for 2008-09.
Tower Hamlets Opposition leader Peter Golds said: 'Paying a yearly rate of £76,000 for one family shows the ludicrous public money being paid to put people into expensive housing.
'It is utterly, utterly ridiculous what sort of properties the council must be housing these families in.'
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions: 'We can't justify having welfare families in wealthy properties in expensive areas which hard-working families can't afford.
'We have to be fair. People on benefits have to make the same choices as the rest of the population.'
Benefits capping began on April 1 for all new claimants, but those already getting more than £20,000 are being given up to nine months to adjust.
The Ethiopian family would have to be among the nation's top earners on £230,000 before tax to afford to spend the same amount of money on rent or a mortgage.
Ray Bolger, mortgage consultant at John Charcol in the City, said: 'A family of 12 bringing in £1,460-a-week housing benefit demonstrates why the government is changing the benefit rules.
'Here is a family with 10 children who normally wouldn't be able to pay that amount - but the state is encouraging people like them to have many more children than they can afford.'
Tower Hamlets council refused to comment. A spokesman said: 'We ensure all claims are processed in line with current guidance.'
The top rate of housing benefit has now been slashed to £400-a-week under tough Coalition plans to rein in the vast costs.
The bill for housing benefit has spiralled from £14billion ten years ago to £21billion and is more than the country spends on policing and universities combined.
George Osborne overhauled the law after it emerged Toorpakai Saiedi, a jobless Afghan immigrant with seven children, was paid £2,875-a-week to live in a huge house in Acton, west London.
A suspect package mailed to the Iranian embassy's consular section in London went off outside the building on Friday with bomb disposal experts present at the scene, Press TV reported.
Eyewitnesses told the Islamic Republic of Iran News Agency (IRNA) that the consular section staff who spotted the suspicious package immediately moved it out of the building as they informed the police.
The police cordoned off the nearby streets while bomb disposal experts were trying to defuse the device, but witnesses said the parcel blew up outside the building after several hours.
Those present at the scene also said the device was apparently a percussion bomb, which went off in an uncontrolled explosion. They said the blast did not leave any injury or damage.
This is while police said they carried out a controlled explosion on the suspect package, though it may not have contained any explosives.
The package was delivered on Friday to Iran's consular section, which is located in the west London Kensington district a few streets away from the Iranian embassy.
As usual I haven't been able to find this in any mainstream newspaper...
Take a look at the video below and see if you can guess which City and Country it was taken in.
It is London and it was taken just a few days ago by a brave British National Party supporter using a concealed camera. I would not have given much for his chances were he to have attempted to film it openly, the enrichers do not like people outside of their colonisation areas knowing just how fast they they are spreading.
The video was actually taken just five minutes away from Aldgate Tube Station, where in 2005 the crazed moslem Shehzad Tanweer exploded a bomb on a Circle Line train and murdered seven commuters and injured many more.
So for all you people who live out of town, take a good look at what Whitechapel, the heart of the East End really looks like and then compare the ethnic make up to the people shown on Eastenders and take a look at the stalls in the video - you will not see one white stall owner.
Wake up you people in the sticks, because if you do not these people are spreading quicker than a virus and they only ever spread outwards - towards your part of Our Invaded Land. Fight back and join the BNP.
British police have shut down an international scam in which gang members used stolen phones to ring up millions of pounds worth of calls to their own premium phone lines before pocketing the profits.
Nine people were arrested following raids at homes across London, Birmingham and Middlesbrough, and police seized dozens of iPhones, hundreds of Sim cards, bank cards, fake passports and cash.
The raids followed a month-long investigation into a rapidly growing criminal conspiracy profiting from the theft and illegal use of almost 1,000 iPhones.
West African fraudsters allegedly used false identities and fake credit cards to sign up to O2 phone contracts, which gave them iPhone handsets complete with Sim cards.
They then sold the brand new phones to a middleman who removed the Sim cards and unlocked the handsets before selling both to the alleged London and Essex-based crime gang.
The phones and Sim cards were then sent to gang members in the Middle East, Vietnam and Europe, where the handsets were sold off and the Sim cards were used as part of a sophisticated electronic scam.
The gang set up their own premium rate phone lines and plugged the Sim cards into automatic calling devices which continually rang their own lines at a charge of £10 a minute.
A loophole within the phone market means providers are liable for any bills racked up abroad, which they then claim back from the customer.
The gang pocketed £1.2million in July alone, which was paid by O2 to the owners of the premium phone lines - which happened to be the gang.
When O2 went to recoup the bill from the fraudsters who purchased the initial phone contracts, they discovered the accounts had been set up using false identities and the customers did not exist.
Police arrested several members of the premium phone line gang, all of whom are of Pakistani origin, at homes in Forest Gate, Southall and Southend.
They are suspected of setting up a complex network of shell companies to launder the profits from the premium phone lines and hide their identities.
At one home in Forest Gate, police found hundreds of Sim cards, £15,000-worth of iPhones still in their boxes, 20 bank cards and several fake passports.
At another property they also found hundreds of letters that had been prepared to try and con people out of their savings with a promise of a lottery win, a scam known as a 419 con.
Investigators have traced the stolen handsets and Sim cards all over the world, including several countries in the Middle East, continental Europe and Vietnam.
They want to know where the profits went, as many of those involved lived 'under the radar' in council houses with few obvious assets, apart from relatively smart cars.
Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart, of City of London Police, which is the national lead force for fraud, said: 'Today we have struck at the very heart of a highly sophisticated criminal network that has been targeting the telecommunications industry to steal millions of pounds. Our investigation found a crime gathering momentum. Each month more Sim cards were being used to make more phone calls to premium rate lines at more expense to the network provider. The criminal exploitation of the latest consumer technology is a recurring theme of our work. Our collaboration with O2 on this investigation highlights the benefits of how the private sector can work with the police to proactively target common threats to our communities.'
Adrian Goreham, who is responsible for tackling fraud at O2, said: 'This was a sophisticated and organised attempt to defraud mobile phone operators. We are committed to reducing mobile phone crime and have a dedicated team that monitors and investigates such attempted criminal activity.
Those arrested were aged between 18 and 42.
DM
I wonder where a pakistani gang would redirect the £1.2 million...?
Is it any surprise that one of our soldiers returning from Afghanistan has been refused service in the New Addington, Croydon, Co-Op, when you consider the demographics? It is under 60% white. I'll let you guess what half the other 40% is made up of.
Here's the story...
A hero soldier who had just arrived home from a tour of Afghanistan was refused service at a supermarket after being told they didn't serve people in army uniform.
Sapper Anthony Walls, of the 21 Engineer Regiment, popped into the Co-op in Croydon for some beers after a gruelling 34-hour journey from Kandahar.
The 27-year-old, said it was his 'first hour back in the real world' after dodging Taliban bullets for the past four-and-a-half months helping build 'the most dangerous road in Afghanistan'.
But when he arrived at the till to pay he was met with a blank stare from the cashier, who refused to serve him and called for her manager.
When the manager turned up he told him he 'couldn't do anything about it' and refused to serve him while he was in uniform.
The patriotic soldier - who was on his way to his three-year-old nephew Jack's birthday party - simply left his beer at the check-out and walked out of the shop in daze.
He said: 'I was shocked and deeply hurt.
'All I was thinking about was getting home to Jack in time to wish him a happy birthday.
'It was great to be home after a difficult journey and I just thought I'd grab a couple of beers - a luxury I hadn't had in a while.
But when I came to pay the cashier refused to serve me and rang her bell.
'A male supervisor came along and the cashier explained she was refusing to serve me because I was in uniform.
'He looked at me and said "I can't do anything about it".
'I put the beer down and walked out.'
Anthony, who joined up when he was 17, said it was 'tough' in Afghanistan and that he had witnessed the death of one of his best pals, Sapper Daryn Roy, who died at the age of 28 in an IED explosion in May this year.
He added: 'It's really tough out there. Sometimes the only thing that keeps you going is the support and love from home. I appreciate the Co-op cashier may have had her own opinions about the war, but we are just doing a job and laying our lives down for this country. A little respect and appreciation would be nice.'
Anthony's sister Claire Lloyd, 33, said she was 'disgusted' at her brother's treatment at the Co-op store in New Addington, Croydon.
The mother-of-four said: 'I am so proud of Anthony - he works hard and willingly puts his own life on the line every day.
'To come home to this kind of treatment is disgusting.
'I feel he deserves an apology in person from the Co-op. Anthony and his colleagues are the unsung heroes of this country - they deserve the respect and civility extended to anyone else in a uniform.'
A spokesperson for The Co-operative said: 'This was a genuine mistake on the part of our two members of staff, and has nothing to do with anyone’s ethnicity, religion or personal views (pull the other one). We have apologised to the soldier in question and hope to welcome him back to the store.
'We do not have a policy that states that when wearing uniform, members of the armed forces should not be served alcohol or cigarettes and are all welcome in our stores.'
Even foreigners settled here say we should close the doors.
When is the government going to address the issue? They won't because they have created a climate where anyone who questions immigration is classed as racist.
The next time you call your council and are passed around from department to department, put on hold 5 times and hear lots of laughing and giggling in the background while you are getting nowhere and angrier by the second, remember this...
In his emergency Budget this week, Chancellor George Osborne announced he was cutting public sector expenditure by 25 per cent. Unions have declared the cuts irresponsible. But are they? Here, one employee for a large inner London authority lifts the lid on the culture of inertia and incompetence at his workplace. The Mail knows the true identity of the man - a graduate who has been a planning officer for eight years. But to protect his job, he is writing under an assumed name.
Monday morning, it's 10am and I'm late for work - but there's no point hurrying because even though I should have been at my desk 30 minutes ago, I know I'll be the first to arrive at the office.
Sure enough, the planning department is a ghost town.
Our flexi-hours policy means that employees can start any time between 7.30am and 10am, but council workers like to treat that as a rough guideline rather than the contractual obligation that it is.
I'm a senior planning officer: it's my job to inspect buildings, grant planning approval and to guide members of the public looking to alter their homes.
Our department has 60 employees and - until last Tuesday - a budget of £22million.
I've been there for two years and in that period the only time I've ever seen every employee present and correct was at the Christmas party.
At least ten people will be off sick on any one day. The departmental record holder is Doreen - she has worked a grand total of eight days in 14 months.
Doreen must be the unluckiest woman in the country.
In the past year and a half she claims she has: fallen victim to frostbite; been hit by a car; and accidentally set herself on fire.
But she's really pulled out all the stops with her latest excuse: witchcraft. That's right, Doreen believes somebody in Nigeria has cast a spell on her and that it would be unprofessional of her to attempt to do the job she is paid £56k a year for while under the influence of the spell.
She has already been off for four months on full pay. I've no idea how long this spell lasts, but my guessing would be six months to the day - the exact amount of time council employees can take off on full pay before their money is reduced.
But having just eight weeks of full pay left won't be a problem for Doreen and the rest of the council's sickly staff - they'll simply return to work when the six months is up, put in a day or two's work and then go off sick for another six months on full pay again. Easy.
Of course they have to provide sick-notes from a doctor, but as you can buy fake ones online for £10 it's never proved a problem.
There are procedures in place to address attendance, but nobody ever follows them through - chances are the person whose job it is to monitor sickness is probably signed off himself.
Some human resources managers, usually new to the job, do try to take action - but it mostly backfires.
All credit to the bright-eyed young HR manager who, last year, wanted to dismiss a senior employee who had been off sick for three months.
The employee had still been using his company mobile phone, from Marbella.
However, the employee was able (with a little help from the mighty Unison union) to argue that there's no reason why 'sick' people can't rent villas in the Costa Del Sol.
I've been told by colleagues that I don't take enough sick leave - when I protest that it is because I'm in good health they look confused. What's that got to do with anything?
At my borough a worker can take two weeks before having to produce a doctor's note (fake or not).
With the five weeks' annual leave plus bank holidays, even the most conscientious worker in my department is easily taking 12 weeks a year off.
To add insult to injury, some London boroughs recently introduced a new scheme whereby anybody who did an extra 15 minutes' work a day for 20 days could take an extra day's holiday.
But when you can so easily take six months off, who needs official holidays?
Back to the day's business. Jerry is the next to arrive at 10.25am - before he takes his jacket off he performs his morning ritual of taking both his phones off the hook.
God forbid that any resident and council tax payer should be able to speak to him and get some of the advice he's paid £64k a year to dispense.
Jerry is 63 and two years from retirement. He is what is known in the civil service and local government as an 'untouchable' - he's been at the council for more than 40 years, does no work, but would cost an absolute fortune to get rid of.
So he's left alone to play online poker, Skype his daughter in Florida and take his two-hour daily snooze at his desk, no doubt dreaming of the day when his gold-plated public sector pension will kick in.
If you think Jerry's pay is generous, consider this: the head of my department is on an annual salary of £170k plus bonuses, his deputy nets £99k and even the office PAs are on a very respectable £38k - just two thousand less than I get.
I listen to my answerphone and, as usual, there are about 20 messages from people trying to report faulty streetlights or complain that their rubbish hasn't been collected - calls that have been misdirected by our useless call centre.
When I first started here at the council, I tried to pass these messages on to the right department, but eventually gave up - nobody answers phones, nobody listens to voicemails, and emails go unread.
There's no point showing any initiative. I once wandered down to the 'Streetcare' department to ask why the hell nobody was answering the phone.
But only two staff had turned up that day and they were both in the prayer room. Yes, you read that correctly, all large council offices now provide prayer rooms, primarily for their Muslim employees whose faith requires them to perform devotional prayers at midday, in the afternoon and at sunset.
Although it's two years since I started working for this authority I've also worked for two other London boroughs in various capacities over a period of 12 years. In that time I've never known anybody be sacked, no matter how inept and unprofessional they may be.
I'm not sure what it takes to get fired in local government. I'd say 'murdering the CEO' but, even then, you're more likely to be sent on an 'anger in the workplace' course.
Councils love their workshops, training courses and seminars. This week alone I've been invited to attend: A cycle hire and efficiency course; a traffic and pollution briefing; and a training course on offsite health and safety.
Next week there is a two-day course on 'letter writing skills' - I dearly hope that Jackie, our departmental PA, will attend this one. I've given up using her and now type my own correspondence and reports.
The last time she typed a letter for me (to an architect) she misspelt 'accommodation' and 'environment' throughout.
I gently pointed this out to her and asked her to redo the document. But she went sick for two weeks with stress, complaining that she was being bullied.
When my boss called me in to discuss this I, jokingly, said: 'Well I'll just let her misspell everything in future, shall I?' To which he replied: 'Yes, I think that's best for now.'
I'm not sure what workshop I was asked to attend for that particular misdemeanour, but I do recall the 'cultural awareness and sensitivity' one following an incident where I outrageously asked a black colleague if I could open a window behind her desk.
It was 88 degrees outside and our offices have no air conditioning. This lady was born and bred in North London but claimed her Caribbean heritage meant she felt the cold and opening a window by six inches would cause her to suffer.
I did the workshop and wrote her a letter of apology as recommended. I actually began to question whether I was racist or insensitive.
That evening I saw Sean, my oldest friend who is black. I ran the window story by him - he eventually stopped laughing after about 20 minutes.
You can't be made to attend these workshops but, surprisingly, the take-up is remarkably high.
Not because those going want to improve their skills, but because a full day's training comes with a full day's free catering.
' Fact Finding Missions' are another great favourite within the public sector. The last one I attended was a two-day trip ( transport and four-star accommodation included) to a football club in the Midlands.
Supposedly it was to understand how other inner cities tackle sporting events in areas of high population.
However, the only 'fact' I discovered was that it takes about 11 pints and two whisky chasers before my boss keels over.
In fairness, there are some very hard workers at the council, but they are so massively outweighed by the workshy that they're fighting a losing battle. The culture is very much one of getting minimum done for maximum pay.
Even when a reasonable proportion of the staff turns up for work (for our office that would be about 60 per cent) very little gets done because the officers cannot be bothered with the fiddly paperwork that goes with the job.
When residents contact the office because they want, for example, a loft extension or to replace windows in a conservation area, they hit such a wall of inefficiency and apathy that many simply give up or go ahead without permission.
I recently received a letter from somebody looking for the plans to a building that was erected ten years ago.
I passed it on to Jackie the ever-efficient PA, who claimed she couldn't find them. I went to look and located them in 30 seconds.
The only time the department ever really jumps into action is when architects complain.
They know planning inside out and won't be fobbed off with delaying tactics that ordinary citizens have to contend with.
You can't even give them the old council favourite of claiming that you can't answer any of their questions because of 'data protection'. We love that excuse - nobody really knows what it means, but we use it all the time.
Bosses of local authorities have bonuses dependent on not getting high numbers of complaints.
But the only way complaints can be recorded is if they are dealt with - if they're ignored or mysteriously lost then they never existed and won't be counted.
Despite all this, my department makes a huge amount of money - mostly from private developers. If they want to build something it costs them £2,300 just to have an initial planning meeting with us. W
hat they don't know is that we've already had a meeting and decided they probably won't get permission - unless they agree to a 'planning gain' - a dodgy but perfectly legal practice whereby a developer who wants to build, say, a hotel, will be told that he can have his planning permission, but only if he also agrees to build a community centre too.
It's a way for councils to improve local amenities, without having to pay for them from public funds.
Some might call it bribery. For us, it's everyday business that ensures our budgets are protected for our vital work - like protecting our pay rises and perks.
So can anything be done to curtail this greed, waste and chronic incompetence?
George Osborne clearly thinks so, with his bold promises to tackle the bloated public sector head-on.
We had a meeting on Thursday to discuss the Chancellor's proposed cuts - there was talk of strike action among the younger workers, but much rubbing of hands among the 'untouchables', many of whom could walk away with six-figure golden goodbyes.
The cuts and pay freezes are desperately needed, but the one thing Mr Osborne will never be able to control is the culture of inertia and inefficiency that is rife throughout the public sector.
Of course, when I tell my friends in the private sector about my working conditions, they can scarcely believe it.
As the recession bites, they consider themselves lucky to be holding on to their jobs, and are willing to work extra hours or take a pay freeze to ensure their firm's survival.
In the public sector, though, there is no competitive edge; no incentive to cuts costs or improve efficiency. Few genuinely fear for their job security, protected as they are by threats of union action every time the axe looks likely to fall.
It's the same story across the world: when a nation's public sector is allowed to expand into a bloated behemoth, it is almost impossible to cut it down to size, still less to change the culture of waste and laziness that sets in.
I don't know what the solution is. Even those, like myself, who join with the best of intentions are soon worn down and end up subscribing to the 'if you can't beat them, join them' school of thought.
Of course the real scandal is it's your money that's paying for the jollies, the prayer rooms and the never- ending workshops.
In my authority's borough, the average householder pays £1,330 a year in council tax. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to know that they're funding Jerry's internet gambling and Doreen's never-ending sick pay.
