Fighting talk from IDS
Peter Hoskin 5:15pm
Iain Duncan Smith is on a roll, and the roll continues with his interview on Straight
Talk with Andrew Neil this weekend. Supporters of welfare reform will hear plenty to encourage them, even if only on a rhetorical level. Duncan Smith discuses how the fiscal climate makes this a
"once in a generation opportunity and chance to change [welfare] now," and how Beveridge's original intentions have been subverted by a system which traps people out of work. But the most
reassuring segment, by far, is this:
"I, well, certainly, you know, I’ll be honest with you, there was certainly a discussion about that, everything was in the discussion, but my view about this is, I think things like freezing benefits across the board is a pointless exercise. Because what you do is you hurt the most vulnerable but you don’t reform the system. My view about this is that we need to reform the way those benefits are paid and you’ll get much more out of that because you’ll make people more productive. But freezing benefits just puts a disproportionate amount of the burden of this deficit reduction programme on actually the poorest. And so we came to an agreement, George Osborne, he was very good about that, we discussed it, I made the case about it, he agreed with that and that was taken off the agenda."
Why reassuring? Well, because it implies that the Treasury will give IDS a proper shot at implementing his benefit reforms. And that, as we've said on Coffee House before now, is certainly a good thing.
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Dimoto
July 9th, 2010 5:29pm Report this commentA similar argument applies v's 'natural wastage' in the public sector. It is the lazy and inefficient option. A targeted cull please.
Bill (Scotland)
July 9th, 2010 11:14pm Report this commentI shall watch the IDS 'HardTalk' interview with iinterest, but the excerpt you quote seems to me to be a classic example of the 'clear-thinking' for which this gentleman is noted [not]. Basically he is no more than a nonentity. Why is he there?
Major Plonquer 1
July 10th, 2010 4:47am Report this commentThe only way to end poverty is to tax it. Pretty soon everyone in the UK would be stinking rich.
Chuck Unsworth
July 10th, 2010 6:10pm Report this commentYou cannot eradicate poverty. Poverty is a comparative term, so the definition constantly changes. After all, when the majority of society owns three houses, those with only one are in poverty.
David Ossitt
July 10th, 2010 8:05pm Report this commentTrue poverty is being in the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions.
Chuck Unsworth writes “You cannot eradicate poverty”
I am of the opinion; that we should not even try to, I was born in 1940, into a lower middle class household and we were comfortable but by today’s standards we would have been classed as poverty stricken.
IDS is on the right track; it is the poverty of the soul that constant welfare brings that is the real problem.
Andrew Brown
July 11th, 2010 9:35am Report this commentIan Duncan Smith is a smiling assasin ose welfare reforms far from intended to eradicate poverty through work will sim,ply aim to make peoe earn their ownb . The notion that many families could earn enough to pay their rent and househild bills and be better ioff. In some cases they may be a lot better off but in most cases ther difference will be minimal. But welfare reform depends on huge investment and a significantlyu revived economy . Neither are likely anytime soon. Take Incapacity Benefit, trimming the numbers even by one million will not itself make a great deal of difference to the debt and deficit. Only ifd the majority of them got work (most employers won';t go near them) would this be a tax pay cheque... and tax receipts not cuts are what are really needded.
Duncan Smith is neither charismatic nor a unifying leader and is from the right of party. He is the worst person to lead the coilition through the most politically devisive oif issues. MPs themselves see constitutents in their surgeries a presently everty MP is seeing many people whose sicknes benefit is being unfaierly withdrawn after a discredited computorise medical assessment by ATOS. Unless that is cleared up expect a lot of concern on backjbenches especxially on sickness benefits.
David Ossitt
July 11th, 2010 12:21pm Report this commentAndrew Brown
You are trying to wind us up’ aren’t you?
Your miss-spelt diatribe is meant to be a joke, isn’t it?
Or are you just taking the piss?
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