A political resignation

[DanaC]

Well....it isn't often I read the news these days and smile, but then this:

Iain Duncan Smith (aka IDS, aka The Quiet Man) Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and the main architect of the welfare reform programme, which has been responsible for a truly staggering amount of misery for a fuckton of people who were already having a hard enough time of things thankyou very fucking much - has resigned from the cabinet in protest at the proposed further cuts targeted at disability benefits, in particular the personal independence / independent living allowance.

The whole thing is also probably about the division over europe, as he and the chancellor are on opposite sides of the Brexit debate.

But still - it's nice to see that when the chancellor put forward yet another budget with cuts to the social safety net alongside tax breaks for higher earners this was the catalyst for things to start going horribly wrong for him and scupper his chances of taking the leadership when Cameron steps down.

Here is IDS's resignation letter to the Prime Minister in full.

"I am incredibly proud of the welfare reforms that the government has delivered over the last five years. Those reforms have helped to generate record rates of employment and in particular a substantial reduction in workless households.

As you know, the advancement of social justice was my driving reason for becoming part of your ministerial team and I continue to be grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to serve. You have appointed good colleagues to my department who I have enjoyed working with. It has been a particular privilege to work with with excellent civil servants and the outstanding Lord Freud and other ministers including my present team, throughout all of my time at the Department of Work and Pensions.

I truly believe that we have made changes that will greatly improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged people in this country and increase their opportunities to thrive. A nation's commitment to the least advantaged should include the provision of a generous safety-net but it should also include incentive structures and practical assistance programmes to help them live independently of the state. Together, we've made enormous strides towards building a system of social security that gets the balance right between state help and self help.

Throughout these years, because of the perilous public finances we inherited from the last Labour administration, difficult cuts have been necessary. I have found some of these cuts easier to justify than others but aware of the economic situation and determined to be a team player I have accepted their necessity.




You are aware that I believe the cuts would have been even fairer to younger families and people of working age if we had been willing to reduce some of the benefits given to better-off pensioners but I have attempted to work within the constraints that you and the chancellor set.

I have for some time and rather reluctantly come to believe that the latest changes to benefits to the disabled and the context in which they've been made are, a compromise too far. While they are defensible in narrow terms, given the continuing deficit, they are not defensible in the way they were placed within a Budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers. They should have instead been part of a wider process to engage others in finding the best way to better focus resources on those most in need.

I am unable to watch passively whilst certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest.

Too often my team and I have been pressured in the immediate run up to a budget or fiscal event to deliver yet more reductions to the working age benefit bill. There has been too much emphasis on money saving exercises and not enough awareness from the Treasury, in particular, that the government's vision of a new welfare-to-work system could not be repeatedly salami-sliced.

It is therefore with enormous regret that I have decided to resign. You should be very proud of what this government has done on deficit reduction, corporate competitiveness, education reforms and devolution of power. I hope as the government goes forward you can look again, however, at the balance of the cuts you have insisted upon and wonder if enough has been done to ensure "we are all in this together".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35848891

[DanaC]

The fall-out from IDS's resignation is still heavy in the air. This is about as damaging a blow to the treasury and prime minister as it is possible to imagine. It has called into question, publicly and loudly, the central message of this government: 'we are all in this together'.

The unease, even amongst tory mps , over the latest round of proposed cuts to working-age benefits, was already starting to make itself felt in the wake of the chancellor's budget statement. At the same time, divisions and ill-temper over the upcoming referendum on Britain's membership of the EU were beginning to simmer, along with covert challenges to the party leadership. IDS's resignation has ignited the conservative party into all-out civil war.

Here is his full interview with Andrew Marr, where he explains in detail why and how he came to resign.

I should point out, btw, for those on the other side of the pond, that IDS is a former leader of the conservative party. His nickname back then in the 90s was 'the Quiet Man'. Taken from a disastrous party conference speech in which he exhorted press and country to 'never underestimate the determination of a quiet man'.

In recent years he has been the face of benefit reform. The main architect of a wholesale redrawing of working age benefits which has caused an unbelievable amount of misery for a lot of people, has created an administrative backlog leaving people waiting for help for half a year or more, forced thousands of people to relocate out of cities, and thousands more out of houding altogether and into the streets. It has been the prime factor in an explosion of families, even working families, being referred to foodbanks. It is supposed by many, including a lot of mental health charities, to have been the key factor in a rash of suicides. It has been linked to a large number of deaths from malnutrician related illness, and deaths from hypothermia. In one much publicised case a diabetic died because he was unable to afford to run his refrigerator to keep his insulin cold.

Every part of the system is failing. The capability/fitness to work assessments are a national joke (people in hospital on their sick beds, receiving letters telling them they are fit to work and do not qualify for benefits - in several instances thiose letters arrived after the recipient had died). When those decisions are appealed, they are overturned in something like 80% of cases. Sanctions on benefits for jobseekers are being routinely and incorrectly applied. People are having their benefits cut for being ten minutes late to one meeting, or for not attending a meeting when they didn't receive the letter telling them to come to the meeting until two days after the date of the meeting.

IDS and his department, time and again have denied that there are any targets for applying sanctions, that sanctions are there as a tool to encourage, and that for someone to be sanctioned they must have failed to adhere to their jobseeker agreement in serious ways. Yet, time and again, staff at the jobcentre have told parliamentary committees, newspapers, and anyone who will listen that they are being pressured to apply x number of sanctions a week, that they are being given warnings and put on 'performance reviews' if they fail to apply enough sanctions.

The grand overhaul of all working age benefits being brought under one system of 'Universal Benefit', sounds fine in theory, but has been used as a way to reduce what people get, and has cost an almighty amount of money. It has sucked up vast quantities of tax payers money and is running several years behind schedule for full implemention - the whole system had to be scrapped and started again because the company deisgning the IT system failed utterly. Billions wasted.

Now IDS seems to be shifting the blame for the worst excesses of this 6 year assault on the poor firmly into the chancellor's hands.




For more on the political fall-out from this:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...irst-interview

[sexobon]

The UK's poor should migrate to Germany which will actually PAY THEM to go back and stay the UK.

Germany learns how to send back migrants — pay them

Pack your bags!

[Gravdigr]

Sic 'em, girl!! Get 'im!!!

[DanaC]

heheh.

I do hate them. I always have, and I always will. I don;t mean I hate all conservatives - the vast majority of conservatives I believe want the best for the country. I disagree with their analysis of what that might be, but I don't really doubt their intentions are any less well-meaning than my own.

But the conservative high command are a different kettle of cod. I am happy to see them in disarray, because they are tearing up what little remains of the social contract, the welfare state and the NHS with gay abandon and apparent impunity. We've got rising levels of domestic violence, as families are pushed into crisis, ever more children living in poverty, massive numbers of people in low-waged, insecure work, an ever worsening housing crisis, and rising inequality - all we are told in order to balance the books, meanwhile the cost of this grand scale attack on the poor means the deficit has grown faster under their administration than it did under the previous government, and wages are unlikely to return to pre-2008 levels in real terms until well into the 2020s.

I never did like IDS, but I'm happy he's decided to take a shot at the blatant unfairness of cut after cut to the incomes of the poor, juxtaposed with tax cut after tax cut for the better off.

If his resignation has fatally wounded the leadership ambitions of the psychopath in No. 11, then that's something positive to come out of the mess.

If anybody needs me, I'll be sitting in the front row with a bag of peanuts and some knitting.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Achtung Englanders,
Ve twice failed to seizing control zee island, but wiz zee EU ve vill not fail again.
......................................................................... xoxoxo Deutschland

[Sundae]

I may be politically naive (I am, actually) but I honestly believe this is more about Europe.
IDS has jumped bandwagons - after hurting the poor for so long, he's all, "Oh noes! Don't hurt the poor!"

He's looking to get re-elected, whether as an independent or via UKIP. And in the mean time he's both distanced himself from Brexit - something he feels FAR more strongly about than the undeserving poor - and what he has done to the latter.

He's hardly hurting for money, and he's an ambitious political animal. He would not resign over a matter of conscience, because if he had one it shrivelled in flame years ago.

[DanaC]

I doubt it's about getting himself re-elected - far more about his Brexit agenda and his desire to damage Osborne. There's no love lost between those two. I think he has an eye on who he doesn't want to be leader of the party after the Camerondroid 2000 steps down.

I could be wrong - we'll see if he stands for another party or continues as a conservative.