Layabout dad Mike Holpin has the names of his 40 children tattooed on his back. Which is convenient – because unless his head can swivel 180 degrees it means he can’t see them. Which also means he doesn’t have to think about them, take responsibility for them, or pay for them. Because the State does that.

And so far Mike’s inability to keep it in his trousers has cost the benefits system a staggering £4.5million.

Memory: Mike Holpin's family tree tattoo on his back (Image: Channel 5)

“I don’t believe in contraception,” he says. Of course he doesn’t.

But he would if it were HIM who had to pick up the tab for his brood, if it were him who had to house, clothe and feed them. But you and I are forced to do that. So Mike just goes on waving his willy at whatever woman is daft enough to take him on.

If ever there was an argument for slashing £12billion off the welfare bill, Mike Holpin has just given it to the Tories on a plate.

Because it’s losers like him who have made working people angry at a system that was set up to help them if they fell on hard times.

Fertile: Mike with just two of 40 children that he knows of (Image: Channel 5)

It’s those people who hate the likes of Mike Holpin more than anyone because he’s not just trashed Nye Bevan’s dream of a welfare state – he’s peed all over it and stuck two fingers up at everyone who wants to work and believes their families are their responsibility.

The Holpins of this world – who’ve never worked yet think it’s their God-given right to knock out children without considering how this feckless lifestyle might affect them – have made “benefits” a dirty word.

Thanks to them, people who end up on welfare through no fault of their own are judged and stigmatised in the way Mike Holpin is. And they feel shamed by that because they’re a million miles away from being like him.

And it’s precisely because of people like Holpin the system has to change. That doesn’t mean those truly in need should suffer but there has to be a cap on laziness, irresponsibility and those wasters who have made ­benefits a lifestyle choice.

Out of work: The reckless father of 40 (Image: Channel 5)

Because it isn’t right that people who work all hours for pitifully low wages have less money in their pockets at the end of a month than an idle sponger who hasn’t done a stroke for years yet has claimed £675,000 from the State for himself (on top of the £3.5million his ­children cost).

But what really sticks in my craw about this sexually incontinent ­alcoholic is his lack of remorse for the children he has fathered. On his own admission he wouldn’t recognise most of them in the street (he’s not entirely sure how many he’s got) and at least 16 have been taken into care at some time.

Yet still he wants more. But what kind of life lies ahead for those kids when, from the minute they’re born, their lives are blighted by a father who doesn’t give a toss about them?