Fuck off, IDS

[E10 Rifle]

How on earth did this vicious Victorian moraliser ever get a reputation as a concerned social reformer?

He was on the hard-right of the Tory party in the mid-90s, when he led efforts to topple Major, and remains true to those views now. I guess it's a measure of how Cameron's mob have galloped past him that he's not seen as a hard-rightie now, even though stuff like this demonstrates that he is.

[NHH]

Fuck off, IDS

When he was gotten rid of, he seemed to go all monastic (as far as Westminster was concerned) and set up that think tank, which gave him a reputation as some kind of wild man o' the woods, coming back to civilisation with a moral glint in his eye which gave him a credibility and authority. Fuck knows why; like you say, he was always on the right, as you'd expect the nut jobs of Norman Tebbit's old constituency to choose to replace the skinhead.

[E10 Rifle]

Fuck off, IDS

Ah, the constituency in which I grew up, and which made me the man I am today.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

He released the impact assessment a full 30 minutes before the Lords Debate. What an old-fashioned champion of Parliament he is.

Someone in the Guardian pointed out that if the purpose is to hit 5 kids with different fathers single mother types, these are likely to be in social housing. If you've just lost your job and home though, you'll be in private rent rip-off housing. And hit by this.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

Fuck me the government lost.

Lib Dems or Crossbenchers? Any old one One Nation Tories about?

[Lucia Lanigan]

Fuck off, IDS

It was god wot won it apparently.

What a fucking stupid, nasty, embarassingly arbitrary "we're being firm" gesture of a stunt policy. Feeble little creeps.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

IDS claimed Shelter count people who share a bedroom as homeless. They don't. But it's already in the papers.

[E10 Rifle]

Fuck off, IDS

Nastier and nastier this mean and small-minded shitheap of a country becomes. That we have to rely on the religion-based mumbo-jumbo merchants to take on the market-based mumbo-jumbo merchants says it all. And Liam Byrne is a stupid useless cunt as well.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

You can see why they don't oppose this more strongly though, in a choppy waters way. I should think public support for the measure is pretty high, not least in Labour's heartlands. As Gramsci said, working class culture has a very strong anti-shirker strain. Saying "whatabout bankers?" doesn't change that. I don't think this mean-spiritedness is new by any means. It's the lying of the government that uspsets me. IDS has also come out with something about the unemployed living in big empty houses. Yeah, right.

As a starting point, this amendment seems like a reasonable thing. It would drastically reduce the numbers affected, and focuses on children. And it underlines very well that child benefit should be universal.

[Squarewheelbike]

Fuck off, IDS

So it's now pretty much out there, that there's no homeless and everyone on benefits gets £26,000 a year! Honestly, you couldn't make it up!

Oh, hold on...

[Bill Poster]

Fuck off, IDS

If anyone was in any doubt as to the purely ideological nature of these cuts (although judging by the cunts leaving comments, that's still quite a few people out there):

Crisis LOANS to be removed

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

Note also the nothing to do with us cowardice:

Now it's to be abolished: cut by 39%; the remaining £178m will be dispersed to local authorities but not ringfenced. Many councils admit they will spend it on other things.

That'll be those councils Eric Pickles is forcing into a council tax "freeze".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

Rare sighting of decent Tory:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/24/welfare-reform-revolt-tory-peers?intcmp=239

He's 84.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

for more of IDS, check these fact checks:

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/Welfare_Reform_Iain_Duncan_Smith_Telegraph-2507

“Welfare budgets have rocketed and almost two million children are growing up in a household where no one works. Incredibly, the proportion of working-age adults living in poverty is the highest since records began.”

How many live in families who've never worked? Nearer 260,000

Another recession denier then.

“Around 50 per cent of those receiving DLA did not have to provide additional evidence to support their claim, and some two thirds of current recipients have an award for life, which means they may never be checked to see if their condition has changed.”

What does additional evidence mean? Do you ask your injured soldiers for it?

“By reforming crisis loans, we will ensure that the job centre is no longer seen as a "hole in the wall" for those short on cash;

No evidence of this at all, beyond a "small number" of people mentioning it a DSS Survey and some others owning up to having used it for non-essentials.

Seeing it's recovered directly from benefits, is it the end of the world?

[Lucia Lanigan]

Fuck off, IDS

Another whopper (raise by this blogger):

The exclusion of Child Benefit rendered the measures “pointless” said Iain Duncan Smith, as it “would effectively raise the cap to £50,000″ for some households. That is a big jump! Removing the Child Benefit from the cap would add £24k to it?

The current rate of Child Benefit is £20.30 per week for the first child and £13.50 per week for each subsequent child. This would mean that in order for the cap to go from £26k to £50k we would need to be talking about a family with 33.7 children. That’s not a household; that is a small rural community.

Mind you, let's be realistic: we all know there are two million families with 33.7 children who've never worked a day in their lives in this country. Which is why I can't afford to buy a house, or something.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

I was confused about that too.

And look at those child benefit rates. What a profit you can make.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Fuck off, IDS

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

for more of IDS, check these fact checks:

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/Welfare_Reform_Iain_Duncan_Smith_Telegraph-2507

“Welfare budgets have rocketed and almost two million children are growing up in a household where no one works. Incredibly, the proportion of working-age adults living in poverty is the highest since records began.”

How many live in families who've never worked? Nearer 260,000

Never worked and not working aren't the same thing.

[E10 Rifle]

Fuck off, IDS

The worst thing about this debate isn't just the mere lying, but the vicious motivation behind those members of both Houses who know they're lying. They've been made abundantly aware that a lot of the "bloated" benefit bill goes, not to the "shirkers", but to private landlords, and a lot of the top-up tax credits are necessary as a result of the poverty pay that they're happy for people to receive in a country which celebrates weak labour rights and low wages. And which they're prepared to take precisely no action about. (Indeed, shit bosses and greedy landlords are the people the Coalition's right on the side of)

That all this came on the same day as the risible Vince Cable's all talk no action "crackdown" on excessive pay at the top adds insult to the injury.

And of course I'm well aware that benefit-bashing plays well among a lot of working-class voters, but that doesn't mean divide-and-rule policies should be applauded. And doesn't mean that every single member of each House who voted for this isn't a vicious bullying cunt. Because they are.

[ooh aah]

Fuck off, IDS

Garamczy Antal wrote:

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

for more of IDS, check these fact checks:

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/Welfare_Reform_Iain_Duncan_Smith_Telegraph-2507

“Welfare budgets have rocketed and almost two million children are growing up in a household where no one works. Incredibly, the proportion of working-age adults living in poverty is the highest since records began.”

How many live in families who've never worked? Nearer 260,000

Never worked and not working aren't the same thing.

Well that's why IDS making statements like "2 million children are growing up in households where no one works" is deliberately misleading. It's intended to imply that those children will never see their parents working, whereas in actual fact those parents may well have worked for 16 out of 18 years of that child's life, but if they happened to be unemployed in 2009 they fit into IDS's stats. If 3.5m people are unemployed then clearly a fair number of those people will have families. But those 3.5 million people won't always be unemployed. Back in 2005 most of them had jobs, and their children were growing up in households where one (in some cases both) of the adults worked.

For example I grew up in a household where no adult worked. I also grew up in a household where both adults worked. IDS would take the former situation and use it to imply that it applied to my whole childhood experience, which it didn't.

So whilst the 260,000 statistic isn't technically contradicting IDS's statement, it does contradict the implications behind it, and should be highlighted. It's a difference of over 1.7m, from a claim of almost 2million.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Fuck off, IDS

You can see why they don't oppose this more strongly though, in a choppy waters way. I should think public support for the measure is pretty high, not least in Labour's heartlands.

These are not entirely independent things though, are they?

[Lucia Lanigan]

Fuck off, IDS

The thing is, people are shit at money and it's easy to exploit that. I honestly think that if you put it out there that we're each being stiffed for £1.23 per week for basic sanitation, 75% of people polled would think they were being ripped off.

They've plucked this cap amount out of the air because it will travel well as a big chunk of money to resent. I don't think they're aiming at working class voters here, so much as the middle class (while steadily draining their money and opportunities away) - they keep emphasising that just-out-of-reach 'equivalent' salary of £35,000.

Very few people earn £35,000 a year in this country, but by the same token hardly anyone recieves £26,000 a year in benefits - and if they do it's to support an army of children, so you'd have to divide it by the number of dependents to make it mean anything, which would make it closer to £4,000 each a year for total living costs. And even that is bound to turn out to be unrepresentatively high.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

Add to the bollocks the idea we'd see rents fall once we'd got rid of these benefit people. Last seen rising in London by 7%.

a lot of the "bloated" benefit bill goes, not to the "shirkers", but to private landlords

Very true, but it's still receiving from the state something to the value of £x. When we tot up what eg the Prime Minister gets (usually in response to Eric Pickles), it would make sense to include rent on Downing Street and Chequers. That cash doesn't pass to Cameron at any point doesn't change that. I note George Carey has popped up to play the cunt- we'd be justified in including rent on Lambeth Palace in his case, wouldn't we?

Your position (and mine) is fine- this is an emergency cost, and we need to build more social housing- which as it happens would create jobs. For Labour, who let the "emergency" become permanent and didn't build many social houses, it is more difficult.

a lot of the top-up tax credits are necessary as a result of the poverty pay that they're happy for people to receive in a country which celebrates weak labour rights and low wages.

There has been some distinction drawn between working tax credits and out of work benefits at times. But at other times, I agree, the figure quoted does include tax credits, and it's dishonest.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

Very few people earn £35,000 a year in this country

I understood that as the median household income. Isn't it?

The issue should of course be difficult for the Tories too, having sold off the social housing cheap. It was quite surreal to see Philippa Roe of Westminster Council not mentioning Shirley Porter (who didn't just give a handout to existing tenants, but used a procedure called "designated sales" whereby properties could be flogged to anyone who had a job offer in Westminster). As well as only paying a third of the District Auditors' charge. It would be nice to charge some housing benefit to her.

But Roe reckoned the tenants could negotiate lower rents and stay put. Yeah right.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

IDS' mates in the press caught talking the same bollocks, twice.

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/ESA_fit_for_work_benefits_Mail-3264

Full Fact are often quite generous with their ratings. 1 out 5 is quite something.

Included in the number the Mail say are fit to work are the following:

“Suffering from a life threatening disease in relation to which there is medical evidence that the disease is uncontrollable.”
“An in-patient in a hospital or similar institution.”
“[Receiving] regular weekly treatment by way of by way of haemodyalisis or chronic renal failure.”
“Receiving treatment by way of intravenous, intraperitoneal or intrathecal chemotherapy.”

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, IDS

IDS' religion- which is embedded in everything he does- hasn't stopped him getting a bollocking from the outgoing head of the UK Statistics Authority.

http://fullfact.org/blog/UKSA_DWP_benefits_foreign_concerns-3265

This naive chap reckons you should get proper stats people to look at stats before you issue them to the media. And that perhaps you shouldn't write newspaper articles about these unchecked stats.

The all-party select committee have also criticised him, and noted the poisonous debate. Rather generously, they concede that the press is beyond IDS' influence, but didn't think he was helping.

IDS has though done such a good job in separating DLA (paid to help disabled people have active lives and not need care, including work) and ESA (the replacement for Incapacity Benefit), that disabled charities report disabled people getting much more shit from cunts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/05/benefit-cuts-fuelling-abuse-disabled-people

Ted Heath wrote years after Rivers of Blood that he still didn't think Powell understood the torrent of shit he'd unleashed. Probably the same is true of IDS.