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Reports say Iain Duncan Smith will announce another shake-up of welfare - this time with an overhaul of sickness benefits assessments. The Mail says it couldn't agree more with the work and pensions secretary's assertion that "work is more than just salaries, tax numbers and statistics - it's about self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth. Work is good for your health".
The Express says the current system is deeply flawed in that "it forces people to be divided into two stark categories: those who are able to work and those who are not. This is a nonsense - there are plenty of people who might not be able to do hard physical labour but who are capable of more gentle part-time work."
And the Telegraph agrees: "While it is right to look after those who cannot work because of health problems, parking people on benefits for good helps no one." Having them "stuck at home on benefits" is "not just a terrible waste of taxpayers' money. It is also a huge waste of people's lives", says the Sun.
However, the Daily Mirror says Mr Duncan Smith "couches his slash-and-burn plans in the language of a dodgy self-help salesman". It adds: "IDS lives in a parallel universe where he is the saviour of the poor... But the public needs no help to see the truth. The starting point for this Tory government is always to cut, cut and cut again - regardless of the human cost."
The Daily Mirror is correct.
The Express says the current system is deeply flawed in that "it forces people to be divided into two stark categories: those who are able to work and those who are not. This is a nonsense - there are plenty of people who might not be able to do hard physical labour but who are capable of more gentle part-time work."
And the Telegraph agrees: "While it is right to look after those who cannot work because of health problems, parking people on benefits for good helps no one." Having them "stuck at home on benefits" is "not just a terrible waste of taxpayers' money. It is also a huge waste of people's lives", says the Sun.
However, the Daily Mirror says Mr Duncan Smith "couches his slash-and-burn plans in the language of a dodgy self-help salesman". It adds: "IDS lives in a parallel universe where he is the saviour of the poor... But the public needs no help to see the truth. The starting point for this Tory government is always to cut, cut and cut again - regardless of the human cost."
The Daily Mirror is correct.
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Replies: 37
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What a horrible man this IDS is. He's a man that has lied to get where he is now.
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Facts worried about cuts yet he supports large scale immigration.
If this immigration stopped there would be no need to hound the ordinary Brit. Ye have got to remember this equation. You can't have a welfare state and wholesale immigration You must choose your poison,because you can't have both. |
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Fake Benefit Sanctions Leaflet Leaves Iain Duncan Smith Red-Faced
. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/08/18/uk-benefits-dwp-sanction-leaflet_n_8003828.html The party of euphemisms and fabrications making it up as the go along again? Its called lying in my book. |
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IDS always makes me think of IBS
Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The picture that he and his clan paint is always that it's about fairness to those who are actually able to work. But the environment is made for those with ambition to reap their own rewards, like we are constantly told, 'I started on a council estate and now look where I ended up' mentality, deregulation allows entities to thrive and the open market supposedly allows options and choice and competitiveness. In short those that enjoy putting the effort in are given the spoils of their labour, for which they seem happy....... Until they find out that they arn't happy because it wasnt the means to the end, but the end itself....the comparison that in fact they believe their lot isnt sufficiently more than those who seemingly dont try, haven't had the breaks or arnt as competent as those fortunate enough to have utilised the said advantages. Its the tiny c0cked vindictive sorts that are the ones not content with their lot that create this ideology of hitting others. |
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He a real horrid man, how much tax payers money did he waste trying to implement universal credit, a failed con leader and a failed politician all round.
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It always tickles me to think of the person that feels the need to be sufficiently better off than others to feel a sense of superiority.
Those very same individuals are the ones that say 'the market should be allowed to decide' Well it did, and it decided that infact you arn't anymore significant than those you feel to be inferior, those that do nothing  |
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IDS continues to prove to all and sundry what a complete slimeball he is, by washing his hands of the lies in the leaflets. Blames his officials, and states ' I never saw it ' thereby denying responsibility and refusing to resign.
Despicable man, with no morals whatsoever. Typical of the Tory Cabinet. |
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Facts, you are spouting rubbish again. I have worked for the DWP in the past, and it is drilled into you not to divulge any personal information about anybody. So it is no surprise that these were made up - it really is a nothing issue.
And the cutting of benefits - we ALL know somebody on disability who is not as sick as they say they are. The new rules will catch more of them. Like the alcoholic in my local who is on the sick due to alcoholism and tells the pub (very loudly) that he gets £350 a week. People who are truly disabled will still be looked after - and THAT is what the welfare state is for, not paying somebody benefit for life because they feel a bit peaky. |
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IDS and the tories = lower than vermin
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is IDS holding a furniture sale this weekend
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You can't get much lower than trying to get sick people to work when they are not capable, and you can't try to wield out the cheat by punishing the genuinely unwell too - which is exactly what is going to happen, so shab I haven't got a clue where you're coming from, because this is clearly about cuts far less interested in people's mental or physical health.
Same with the Bedroom tax, some people in genuine need to have a spare bedroom for all sorts of reasons, ended up commiting suicide because of the cuts to their benefits. If you knew how much money the state loses in tax avoidance/evasion compared to how much benefit cheats cost the country you wouldn't bother trying to defend him. That's the real issue, welfare state is a drop in the ocean in comparison, but the rich will look after the rich, inc Ian I'm all right Jack Duncan smith. |
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I don't agree it is a nothing issue Shab. It was a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and not so long ago if a minister or his department did that then it was a resigning matter.
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scandanavian, drop the class war bit, and look at the benefit system as it stands. There are 2.5 MILLION people claiming sick benefit (ESA). Given there are 30 million people of working age, that means one person in 12 is claiming it.
Do you honestly believe that one person in 12 in this country is incapable of any type of work? |
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Eo it wasn't the most intelligent thing to do, but it was done for illustration purposes - did it matter really that the person was made up if the message got across?
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The Express says the current system is deeply flawed in that "it forces people to be divided into two stark categories: those who are able to work and those who are not. This is a nonsense - there are plenty of people who might not be able to do hard physical labour but who are capable of more gentle part-time work."
With all due respect to the half wit undoubtedly earning good money for a modest talent it is their statement which is nonsense. Sickness benefits do not currently assess whether a person is capable of doing hard physical labour and if not they get signed off. Anybody capable of doing any kind of work physical or indeed non physical does not get sickness benefits. Of course there are people cheating the system but that is a different matter. The question which people must ask is a simple one because there is no fail safe mechanism. So are you prepared to accept a relatively small number of malingerers in order to help those who cannot help themselves or would you rather those who cannot help themselves are left to die? |
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Yes it matters a great deal to me Shab. I want my government and those who work for it to be transparent and honest unless there is an issue of national security. Someone took that decision to deliberately mislead when they could have inserted a note to make it clear that it was for illustrative purposes and there begins a slippery slope in my view.
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IDS and the tories< lowest of the vermin
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scandanavian, drop the class war bit, and look at the benefit system as it stands. There are 2.5 MILLION people claiming sick benefit (ESA). Given there are 30 million people of working age, that means one person in 12 is claiming it.
Do you honestly believe that one person in 12 in this country is incapable of any type of work? As I understand it this is incorrect Shab. Only the small percentage of people placed in the support group are deemed incapable of any type of work. The vast majority are placed in the work related activity group and are there as a prelude to moving back into the labour market. |
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No shab it's very relevant so can't do that.
There are always people who will abuse the system, but this is just another way of making poor people poorer. What should be addressed and heavily is tax evasion and avoidance, for every 1 headline on it, there are hundreds more on benefits, for every 1 TV programme on Tax evasion/avoidance there are dozens more on benefits and I'm afraid you've fallen into the trap of directing your anger towards the people the government want you to. It's just a fact that welfare state cost billions less than tax dodgers. Makes for a less attractive debate though I guess. |
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but scandanavian, your argument is nonsense. Nobody is saying that tax dodgers should get away with it.
EO - you've answered my point. 1 in 12 people believe they are too ill to work (hence the claim for sickness benefit) but, as you say, a vast majority of them are not too ill to work at all. It is this vast majority that is the point of the discussion, not the seriously ill. |
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I think you'd find many more people rallying to your banner if you didn't mislead them scandinavian. Tax avoidance is legal and conflating it with tax evasion is morally reprehensible and the actions of a rogue.
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It's not an argument it's a fact, and this is yet another example of focusing on the poor and not the rich avoiding paying their due. Loopholes may be legal, but as Jimmy Carr found out, that is what is really morally reprehensible so you're preaching is misplaced on that front.
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How would you possibly know how whether the vast majority are not too ill to work, pure guesswork that makes your argument nonsense when it's based on your own made up figures.
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That's about as meaningful a statistic as 60% of teenagers believe they could win x factor Shab. The fact is that there are people out there with difficulties who have been assessed by the DWP. About 1 in 10 of those are deemed to be incapable of work with the rest either declared fit for work or placed in the group where they are helped to prepare for a return to work. Those people now get the sae money as if they were signing on and have to jum through the same kind of hoops the unemployed do.
So there are two ways of interpreting what Smith is saying. Either he is saying he wants to give these people a leg up with the safety net of them keeping their ESA as they start to earn with it only being removed at a point in the future when they are established in the work force. In which case I say good on him. Some of these people need a lot of help. Or he is once again going to cosh them as he smiles his shiit eating grin whilst chanting Arbeit Mach Frei. Time will tell but the portents aren't good. |
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You're dodging the issue scandinavian. Whenever people like you talk about morals my first instinct is to count the spoons. What is legal is legal. What is illegal is illegal. No ambiguity. Just how I like things. Don't like the law? Campaign to change it. Just keep your hands off my spoons whilst you lecture me on probity.
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What is legal is legal.
I don't think entering into very convoluted tax avoiding loopholes should just be glazed over here, and the fact you're trying to speaks volumes, it's something that cost the UK Billions every year and is far more prevalent than the Welfare state yet one gets far more attention and headlines than the other. |
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I agree but two points. This is a democracy and you can talk to people freely and win them round to the virtue of your position. Secondly, this is a stick which curiously the left seek to beat the current government with when it was a Labour government under which most of these affairs were allowed to spring up. Who was it turned to tax system into the convoluted mess it became? Step forward Gormless Clown.
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With all due respect EO, whatever Brown did the Tories have now had several years to put right.
And on this basic issue, I think you know that IDS is no more interested in the welfare of the British people than I am interested in taking a holiday in Stoke. |
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Nobody ever thought the Tories weren't the friends of the wealthy jed. My point is that the dopes are gurning about them when their own party ushered in the era of being "comfortable with people getting filthy rich".
I hear Stoke is very nice at this time of year. |
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Yes, the class war angle does them no credit. I'm entirely comfortable with people being as rich as they want to be, but slightly less comfortable with the poor and disabled being targeted for ideological reasons by venal scumbags such as IDS.
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We speak as one here.
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Blimey. EO and I are as one on this ( mainly )
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This is simple divide and rule ideology.
It is to appease the working poor to make the working in s hitty jobs for other ppls benefit look worthwhile, not by improving their lot but by degrading the lot of those that can't or refuse to ablige. Those ppl who feel that their little existence is more worthwhile simply because the government tells them so and that they should feel the only real reward, pride because the real value has been stripped within a system that rewards opportunism. The unmerited 'pay' of those people who rewards themselves far more than their ability demands skews the system and forces the government to dream up ever more Dickensian policy to force minions into becoming the drones required until which time robots will take their place. |
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Some questions..
1/ Did not IDS try to pass some new rules to this benefit a couple of years ago and was facked off? 2/ Where's Labour? 3/ How are they going to differentiate between claimants if they have all been passed unfit for work? (at the time) 4/ How much will this cost the government when the claimants hurt-injure themselves doing forced work and sue the arse off them? 5/ Where's Russell Brand? 6/ When does it come into force? |
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A gunsel. Even some of the Tory faithful admit that he is a lying, worthless article who got his job because of a certain wealthy party supporter.
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irritable d******d syndrome
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There are 10,000s of people in the WRAG group of ESA only getting their NI stamp credited and getting nothing else off this government.
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