The article is interesting and I have provided a link, but what I thought was interesting was this comment from a correspondent, a retired man who goes by by the nom de plume "Terryec".
I have reproduced it here, without his permission, but in the hopes that he won't mind. It seems to sum up what I hear from a some ex-Labour supporters here, around town and at the gym.
I am an old socialist and make no apologies for that, I
believe we pay our taxes and NI for a reason, and that is to protect ourselves
and others who fall on bad times, I was lucky in life not to have any
disabilities, bad illnesses or long stretches of unemployment, I am now retired
and have a decent if not luxurious lifestyle.
I have seen the standard of living since just after the last
world war improve greatly until about twenty years ago when salary caps and
cutbacks have become the norm for all but the wealthy industrialists and
bankers, very few have a better standard of living than they did in 2001 even
after the so called boom years and a so called Labour party.
Labour has now become so far removed from the problems of
the working class that they feel it is legitimate to allow the rich to avoid
taxes while hitting those that need to rely on the state, don't misunderstand
me If you can work it is beholden to you to work.
Last week we had a Labour MP (WTF) Danczuc felt it was OK
for a Tory proposal to stop benefits for a further week on people who lose
their job bringing them up to 4 weeks without money, I could get by on that as
could Danczuc, who gets £1000 a day advising PFI companies, and you wonder why
these companies got a grip during the Labour years, but people who get next to
nothing can't, how out of touch is that from a "LABOUR", I said a
"LABOUR" MP
And this is what we have, as soon as they join the
Westminster bubble they forget why people voted for them, it seems it becomes a
scramble for as many paid consultancies as they can muster and become different
people, what’s the answer, but I do know a lot of people won't be voting Labour
again.
Iain Duncan Smith's plans will probably not only not save money, but they will COST money whilst making life immeasurably harder and more miserable for poorer people.
All this from a man who lied on his cv about having been to a prestigious Italian university, founded by the Pope in 1308, and having graduated from a management college in England, when in fact, he went to a foreign language college in Italy (a bit like EFOL course here) from which he gained no qualifications and did not even finish his exams, and he attended, as part of his job, a few short course at his employer's staff training department. (Acknowledgement to BBC Newsnight)
Additional Photograph
 |
| Found on Facebook with the caption: IDS with his medals for lying |
He really isn't the sharpest sandwich in the tool box.
ReplyDeleteImagine thinking he could lie and we wouldn't find out.
Oh wait, he is a politician.
The trouble with Smith Snotty, is that he just goes on and on lying. It seems that there's hardly week goes by without some statistic or another trotted out by his department being proved to have come from the back of a Rice Krispies packet.
ReplyDeleteThis is what one commentator on Facebook said of him:
So we come once again to Iain Duncan Smith. This guy should be in broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital rather than a ministerial office because he is clearly a complete wack job.
Last week Smith proudly told parliament that his multi billion pound Universal credit scheme had been launched successfully since April "in Greater Manchester " BUT as usual Smith was being a little economical with the truth, When he told Parliament '' Greater Manchester '' what he really meant was the small market town of Aston under Lyne which also happens to have a very low amount of people using the benefit system so there was no real strain on his universal credit scheme and yet it was still a right shambles with people not receiving their benefits and people getting benefits they had not claimed for.
If it was that ''successful'' then why has the "national roll-out", due to start in October, been extended to just another six job centres, none of which are in any of the countries major cities, and all six are still restricted to a minority of claimants and to areas with low unemployment, like Harrogate a spa town in North Yorkshire which has the lowest proportion of claimants in the whole of Yorkshire.
Iain Duncan Smith is for the want of a better word '' full of shit '' and just a complete and utter failure as I have said on this page many times before, you just have to take a look at his track record and you see it reeks of failure and lies and double standards and yet David Cameron gave this nut case the go ahead to spend billions of pounds of public funds on his own wet dream of a new welfare system shaped in the image of his own vision, when all that was needed was for it to be reformed in parts by somebody that had just a little piece of talent and no how, Something that Smith has never had and never will have and when we all pick up Iain Duncan Smith's bill for this multi billion pound shambolic mess, the Tories I am sure will lay the blame at the door of the people that use the welfare system because that is all these scoundrels know how to do.... Have a great week and try keep cool in this heat wave whether at work or at home.
Ah but he is going to reduce the max benefit yet again because, it is popular.
ReplyDeleteIs popular, note that, not equitable or fair or correct; popular and he'll do it in the run up to the next GE.
I hope he does just before the Ref in 2014 and suspect that he may just do so.
Yes. It's popular and will steal votes from UKIP and Labour... and that's all that matters, so he will keep reducing it until only rich people live in London.
DeleteThe poor will either be dead or moved to that great unknown... the North!
I don't have a problem with the benefit cap since virtually no-one will be affected by it in that they get nowhere near £500 (£350 if single). My problem is the number of numpties who, because of government spin, now think/state that all unemployed/disabled folk get £500/£350 pw. Boy are they going to get a surprise if they become unemployed/disabled or both. Particularly if they have a mortgage and think they will get housing costs paid like renters do.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for universal credit, don't get me started Tris. Do you know that the claiment can be fined £50 if someone else makes a mistake (e.g a person at DWP) and the claiment doesn't
a) spot it
b) notify DWP tout suite.
I thought it was only if the claiment made a mistake but apparently not.
I think Nicola Sturgeon said that only 10 families in Scotland would be affected by the cut. More obviously if the bastard keeps on reducing the amount.
DeleteI didn't know that, and I feel dreadfully sorry for people who have to wade through all the patronising paperwork that comes with these decision, and ahs to try to work out whether or not some underpaid, demotivated, unhappy, disinterested dumb nut at the DWP has made a mistake.
That should be illegal, and I imagine that someone will challenge it in the courts and have Iain Duncan Smith found to have broken the law yet again.
tris
ReplyDeleteWhen you have Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun's associate editor praising
Liam Byrne and saying he has the right approach to welfare?
perhaps its time Mr there is no money Byrne to be shown the door
It's competition to see who can please the UKIP voters more, Niko.
DeleteThe Sun loved UKIP, ironically bemoaning the fact that the unfair voting system FPTP, (which you may remember the Sun praised to the roof tops when there was talk of making it marginally more democratic) was unfair to poor wee UKIP...
...You know, in the same way it has always been unfair to everyone who wasn't Labour or Tories.
I've long thought that Mr Byrne should join the Tory party, or maybe UKIP.
I imagine that over the next two years both Labour and the Tories will develop policies even more anti- the poor, the sick, the unemployed, immigrants, the EU, the disabled, the Celtic nations and anyone who isn't "people like us".
Whilst I detest these policies I reckon that they will work in favour of the independence movement. The policies aren't popular in the north of England or most of Wales and Tory policies haven't been popular in Scotland since Thatcher...
We either live under this kind of administration, competing with the opposition to be more UKIP than UKIP, or we have an independent Scotland working along the lines of a Common Weel, as proposed by the Jimmy Reid foundation, somewhere along the lines of the Scandinavian model. At the very least, I can't see an independent Scotland ever having policies like these nobs.
when Labour try to out tory the torys they only
ReplyDeletevindicate the Tory policies and approach leading
voters to conclude they would be better off with
the REAL Torys.
Well, if you can have the real thing for the same money, why would you want an imitation, no matter how realistic it is.
DeleteWhat the hell ever happened to real Labour people?
tris
ReplyDeleteWe died
No you didn't, Niko. You let Blair steal your party for his own greedy ends. Now he's VERY rich and getting richer, and he has a Congressional Medal for Meddling in other people's affairs and killing foreigners (most specifically ones with brown skin and loads of oil).
DeleteOh I don't blame you. He was there, he was young, energetic, seemed to be following in the steps of John Smith, was electable after the horrors of Margaret Hilda and Little Johnny Minor.
But underneath all that boyish charm, he was a manipulative little grubber of the worst kind.
And now Labour know that the only way they will ever get power again is to be more right wing than Dodgy Dave the second hand arms dealer and Nasty Nige, the drunk.
And even a supposed left winger can't pull them back. They know that in England they need to appeal to the Tory / UkIp / whatever vote... and they so want power... Of course all the people who did well in the Blair years are still there. I wouldn't have Mili's job for all the coffee in Brazil. He's got a pile of unlovely tossers on his front bench.
You need to take your party back. At least in Scotland. Get rid of that daft liability that is 'leading' Labour (down the garden path) and get in some people who can stand up to Milibean and tell him that we want some decent left of centre policies in Scotland, otherwise people will not vote Labour.
If memory serves me right similar victimisation of a certain group of people happened in Europe back in the 1930s.
ReplyDeleteI said that a while back CH.
DeleteThey are working their way through all the people who cost them money in any way. Never mind what they have put into the country in the past.
The poor; the unemployed, the sick, immigrants, the human rights acts.
The old are already in their firing line starting off with the well-off ones, which of course will not get too much hassle...after all, why should Cilla Black get a winter fuel allowance or a bus pass?
But when it's popular, it won't just the the rich; it will spread down the income chain, and because it is popular they will go on doing it. Until pensioners with the lowest pension in Europe will freeze to death or starve in far greater numbers than they already do.
But don't worry prince Charles and Mrs Parker Bowles will be Ok.
I wonder if their gay marriage bill will stand the next general election onslaught form UKIP or if Cameron's right wing will demand it be scrapped.
The old are not "in the firing line" although they take the vast bulk of welfare payment, ( which they are due) no party can afford to alienate them. A very high percentage of them turn out to vote in every election.
DeleteWan Punter...welcome.
DeleteThey are talking about reducing payments for better off old people...
The minute you means test benefits they change. They are not entitlements; they become something you have to go cap in hand for.
Many old people will not do that. It is undignified. They remember their parents talking about the shame of the poor house of having to beg for enough to live on. My grandmother would rather eat her own foot than take a means tested benefit.
Of course benefits for the poor become poor benefits as rich people who are paying for them aren't going to enjoy them.
The pension in Britain is already the least generous in the EU, by comparison with the average income. Even in Jersey and Guernsey it is MUCH better, and in France, Spain and Germany far far better.
That was not too bad in the days before Brown ruined private pensions, and QE finished the job. At least the middle classes could live well after retirement. Now only parliamentarians and bankers can do that.
We treat our old badly.
And taking benefits from the rich will be a start. Once they start they will take it down and down until only the desperately poor are getting anything, by begging.
The trouble with saying that old people vote is that as both parties are vying to see who can be the most right wing on benefits, I doubt that there will be much choice.
Again, many old people vote because they believe it a duty. If Labour and Tory is going to reduce the benefits, what do you do?
And you say that they take a great deal of the welfare budget... and of course it is true. They have also paid the most into it...
DeleteTris
ReplyDeleteAs all of us who actually pay attention know there is no difference between the three tory parties now. IDS is a disgusting man who probably feels this is his chance to exert revenge for the voters who never made him PM, and which has forced him to serve under that genius and great thinking Man Cameron's Wife. Everytime I see him I just think he has got to be adding votes to the YES campaign.
The media also have a huge responsibilty to bear around the myth of being better off on the dole, but then given most of the so called important journalists went to Oxford and Eton etc with politicians from the 3 tory parties is it any wonder that our media has went down the american right wing road of being the state propoganda machine.
I know I have mentioned this before but what still amazes me is the voters who either don't bother to vote or continue to vote for Labour in Scotland. Again a lot of that is down to the lies reported in the media, esp the BBC, and we are talking lies. The media across the board just can't be trusted and the best opinion can be found on sites likes Wings, Newsnet and blogs such as this one and some others I could name.
I guess all we can do is continue to share information in as many ways as we can, through blogs, tweeting, facebook. It's a long slog but I do think it can work as the SNP showed at the last election and their use of social media. We need to keep complaining about the media, the bbc in particular. It doesn't matter really if all you get is a pat answer the fact is someone has to read the complaint, they have to most of the time answer it and the answers are in the main laughable and I guess that shows them up more. We just have to keep banging away with the truth, sharing and hope that the Scottish people wake up to the fact that in our country Labour are finally dead and they have to look elsewhere or just shut up and stop moaning about things.
Back to work today after my week and a bit off so good to get an early rant in, cheery.
Bruce
I think that you are right, Bruce. We need to keep tweeting and facebooking all the great sites that there are that put Scotland's point of view. I mean particularly Newsnet, Scot Goes Pop and Wings, because they really do expose the lies.
ReplyDeleteYou're right too about the BBC, although it will make no difference. It isn't you or me who decides how much money they have; it's Eton Boy (or Eton Boy's wife (who apparently wants us to go to war in Syria). And how much money they get is the only important thing in their book.
The BBC charter makes it a part of the establishment, and the establishment doesn't want change. The Beeb is guaranteed the money to waste on all the things it wastes it on, and because customer satisfaction is not part of the deal, it simply doesn't give a toss what you think.
As long as it can get good viewing figures for the pap it puts out like "Strictly Come Brucie" and "Eastenders", it's "job done" and some more corporate back patting, promotions and pay rises, not to mention first class airfares for its top brass!
IDS is repulsive because he's a total fraud. You know he's either eating or lying when his mouth moves, whether it is personal lies about how he went to the oldest university in Italy, when he actually went to a language college down the road and failed to take his exams, or the latest pap about how well his multi-billion pound attack on the poor is going from success to success, when the fact is that it's falling apart at the seams and the staff are completely lost as to what's happening.
Short week... you're half way there now.