Iain Duncan Smith's overlooked "affordable policy solutions"

Frank P

What! More freakin' statistics? What about Neathergate?

DavidDP

"But there's an important aspect of that report which hardly got any attention at the time: "

How do you know? Sure, the press ignored it, but why assume the people that matter did?

Peter From Maidstone

I'm with Frank. This is getting more and more like a Brown PMQs. Ignore the questions and present lots of statistics.

General Zod

This is genuinely important unlike the Neather blather.

Reform of the benefits system to ensure that people are not actively disincentivised from moving off benefits into paid work should be a top priority for the new government.

Pete Hoskin

Frank and Peter from Maidstone: I've already given my take on Neather, so what do you want? More on this subject from me? Which is kinda weird. Or more on it from other Coffee House writers? In which case, why complain why I post something non-Neather related?

Besides, these particular statistics could make the difference between getting 100,000s of people off the benefit lists and, er, not.

Peter From Maidstone

So let's incentivise people to move off benefits while allowing the immigrant population to increase by several million more than it is presently - and which jobs will be taken by these millions of immigrants? Why the ones that indigenous English people should be coming off benefits and taking up.

Peter From Maidstone

Sorry Pete, but where is your take on Neather? Is it just going to be 'Oh, he made a mistake, he didn't mean to say that Labour has sponsored umlimited immigration for its own ends'.

Why is it weird that I might expect more? Isn't it more weird that a (conservative) political journalist doesn't even think there is a story there?

I guess I sort of expect some of investigative instict to kick in with the folk at the Spectator. Or are you just selling words? If the substance of politics doesn't matter then what is the point of writing about it? The previous editorial on Neather was frankly poor.

It's like saying 'Some people are saying Hitler exclusively wanted to eliminate the Jews, but it is now clear this was only a secondary objective'. So that's OK then?

I do appreciate that the Spectator is a business first of all. And I don't mean that dismissively. I do appreciate that your job is to write things. But I am truly confused that none of you there think the Neather thing is worth anything. The Spectator is clearly not what I thought it was.

2trueblue

If they got rid of a couple of quangos that would pay for it, and it would be a good investment for the future. The tragedy is that the cycle of benefit culture is a priority, and must be solved. Labour has created this time bomb and have shown no real interest in any way to initiate a solution. They talk of investment for the future, well maybe they should try doing it.

Luke

The breakeven scenario takes billions of pounds away from families to redistribute it to the childless and those under 25.

Is that really where the money is needed most?

Frank P

I agree with PFM (4.32pm) except in one regard; not all at the Spectator stable are ducking and diving over this; Melanie has produced a real barnstormer on her blog here - an amplification of her Column on Monday in the Mail, which is beyond excellent. But I doubt she would accept editorial interference or stay if you try to spike her guns. It would certainly be your loss if you pushed your luck, I suspect. I'm not griping about you personally Pete; I genuinely have a lot of time for your writing ability and willingness to affably housekeep the blog. But the editorial policy has quite obviously stifled this issue, probably because they are scared of it. Hence the craven avoidance. Just imagine what would have happened if a similar skeleton had fallen from the Tory trunk? Would the MSM have given that a pass? Not on your Nelly!

You are all in shtuck over this (except M) and your credibility is on the line. It's no good whining when you have been guilty of offending your base readership's concerns with evasive tactics, just because they are 'sensitive issues' of immigration and Yurrop and Islamism. Fuck the electoral politics; how about using honesty as a tactic for a change (either way)? The boil needs to be lanced by the surgeon-in-chief, Dave the Dodger. It will hang in the air like a Prescott fart after a bulimia puking session until he does; it will taint his role as a credible Prime Minister in waiting. Listen to your punters FFS. Stop wriggling - you know you piece of apologia for Neather the Nark was implausible, I can't believe a man of your intelligence could think otherwise, or try to convince us unless it was 'under orders'and your couple-of-bob was at stake. Come off it!

Frank P

Oh and while I'm at it Peter, ask your cartoonist why he didn't include Gordon Brown as the third adversary in the "Battle of the Fascists" on your front cover this week. Perhaps he didn't want to dwarf the evil of the other two in comparison?

Horatio

I suspect the reason why people are asking "what about Neather?" is because any influx of workers into a declining employment market while we're trying to get existing inhabitants (can hardly say 'indigenous', can I?) back to work is hardly going to be helpful, is it?