Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53/week fastest petition ever?

[Lord Beria3]

Ahh, a hysterical welfare debate led by the Guardian and their chums...

Funny how it is the poorest people in society who are most hostile to the welfare system and make the Daily Mail seem left-wing... and they depend on in in a way that the well paid liberals leading this latest hysteria couldn't even imagine in their comfortable homes!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... c-families

Recent polls indicate attitudes towards benefits recipients have softened as more information comes out about the impact of the changes to the welfare system. However, having just completed a project with the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust where I interviewed about 150 families who will be directly affected by the cuts, I found the majority held the kind of attitudes that make the Daily Mail's headlines look positively leftwing.

While the latest British Social Attitudes Survey reflected less support among the overall population for unemployment benefits, what it doesn't tell you is that these anti-welfare attitudes are often held by those most in need of a comprehensive welfare state.

Naturally we will now get those amazingly snobbish comments like ("poor people brainwashed by the evil right-wing Murdoch empir"e) as if these people are not capable of making their own judgements based on their experiences of the welfare state!!

Who are the real toffs?

[biffvernon]

But it turns out the market traders income is nearly 3 times the £53 a week.

This is what I find difficult with all these issues, its so difficult to get the facts.

Whatever it is, it will be a lot less than IDS gets for an after dinner speech. And what's more, the market trader is standing out in all weathers providing a service for his community while IDS gets to talk about his hobby after a good free meal. It ain't right.

[Totally_Baffled]

But it turns out the market traders income is nearly 3 times the £53 a week.

This is what I find difficult with all these issues, its so difficult to get the facts.

Whatever it is, it will be a lot less than IDS gets for an after dinner speech. And what's more, the market trader is standing out in all weathers providing a service for his community while IDS gets to talk about his hobby after a good free meal. It ain't right.

What IDS gets for after dinner speeches has nothing do with this issue Biff.

[extractorfan]

Another irrelevance, but who the feck pays to hear IDS do an after dinner speech, he's pretty uninspiring.

[Totally_Baffled]

Another irrelevance, but who the feck pays to hear IDS do an after dinner speech, he's pretty uninspiring.

Quite!

If a bunch of rich tossers want to pay shedloads to be bored by ids' fine by me, as long as he pays 40%-50% income tax maybe its a good thing!!

[JavaScriptDonkey]

The market trader isn't providing a community service either he's just working for money.That his job pays crap money is down pretty much to him.

[biffvernon]

What IDS gets for after dinner speeches has nothing do with this issue Biff.

Hmmm... the discussion, not just here, was in part about how 'in touch' IDS might be with those who need to live on £53 per week. I mentioned the ~£1,000,000 that IDS is said to have earned from after dinner speaking as illustrative of the possibility that he knows little of demands that a £53 per week income makes.

JSD, the market trader works in retail. This is usually described as the service sector of the economy. Market traders typically work in a town's Market Place, the centre of the community. Hence the market trader is best described as providing a community service.

[Totally_Baffled]

Hmmm... the discussion, not just here, was in part about how 'in touch' IDS might be with those who need to live on £53 per week. I mentioned the ~£1,000,000 that IDS is said to have earned from after dinner speaking as illustrative of the possibility that he knows little of demands that a £53 per week income makes.

Hmmm, nope still irrelevant - so he gets paid well for speaking after dinners, so what? - this doesn't disqualify him from looking at this issue beyond anyone else (and it still has to get through parilment - note that its a coalition goverment with the liberals...)

Lets face it whoever (and from whatever political party) looked at welfare reform would have been "too rich" compared to £53 quid a week, somebody has to do it - or we are going bust and Mr Market trader will get even less!

In addition, we cannot even establish if the £53 quid figure is right, or is just some made up number. Even if it is right, we dont know if this is net of what bills.....

[biffvernon]

It is certainly not irrelevant and I explained the 'so what' above. Earlier I had also described how my grandfather, when he was an MP, made a very real effort to try to understand the realities of the less privileged by trying out the 1946 'Starvation Diet'.

There seems little evidence from within the current Cabinet of a willingness to be all in it together.

[Totally_Baffled]

It is certainly not irrelevant and I explained the 'so what' above. Earlier I had also described how my grandfather, when he was an MP, made a very real effort to try to understand the realities of the less privileged by trying out the 1946 'Starvation Diet'.

There seems little evidence from within the current Cabinet of a willingness to be all in it together.

Like most of our exchanges Biff, lets just agree to disagree. Otherwise the thread is going to decend into..

"It is relevant, it isn't relevant, it is relevant, it is!, it isn't!!!" etc

[emordnilap]

Well, they're buying land with it. But in the end they're going to have to buy Protection and all if they expect to actually do anything with that land (like collect rent from it).

That's not proved much of a problem in the past (protection and all). As for getting rent from it, ask the Irish!

[biffvernon]

It is certainly not irrelevant and I explained the 'so what' above. Earlier I had also described how my grandfather, when he was an MP, made a very real effort to try to understand the realities of the less privileged by trying out the 1946 'Starvation Diet'.

There seems little evidence from within the current Cabinet of a willingness to be all in it together.

Like most of our exchanges Biff, lets just agree to disagree. Otherwise the thread is going to decend into..

"It is relevant, it isn't relevant, it is relevant, it is!, it isn't!!!" etc

The thread title is "Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53/week fastest petition ever?" What IDS can earn in an hour and historic examples of MPs attempting to live with meagre resources seems to me to be bang on topic.

[Totally_Baffled]

It is certainly not irrelevant and I explained the 'so what' above. Earlier I had also described how my grandfather, when he was an MP, made a very real effort to try to understand the realities of the less privileged by trying out the 1946 'Starvation Diet'.

There seems little evidence from within the current Cabinet of a willingness to be all in it together.

Like most of our exchanges Biff, lets just agree to disagree. Otherwise the thread is going to decend into..

"It is relevant, it isn't relevant, it is relevant, it is!, it isn't!!!" etc

The thread title is "Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53/week fastest petition ever?" What IDS can earn in an hour and historic examples of MPs attempting to live with meagre resources seems to me to be bang on topic.

I don't agree. Its completely irrelevant.

What is relevant is:

Is the £53 quid figure right?

Is this after Rent/Council tax/bills etc or before?

Can the amount of benefit this man is entitled to be lived on? After all the welfare state is (quite rightly) a safety net.

I punched the numbers into the benefits calculator on the "Turn2Us" website and I made it about £95 quid per week net of Coucil Tax and Rent. So it isn't clear what the numbers are - and that was only point I made in my original post**

**One thing to make clear - if the £53 quid is a genuine figure before Rent/Ctax then its too low and needs reviewing. The mistake IDS has made is not to query the number in the first place on the basis he wouldnt be aware of the numbers in each and every personal situation.

[extractorfan]

Well I didn't sign the petition because its bloody silly as it is obvious that the proles think it's unacceptable for a rich person to attempt to address the concerns of the poor.

This is a stance I would sympathise with if said proles would get off their benefit fattened asses and do something political themselves, or even read a book or two in order to elevate them out of the psychological misery they find themselves in, only they won't because they can't be arsed.

So comparatively rich people have to do it, who have to pussy foot around the banking class because if they don't the banking class, via the gutter press, will tell the stupid not to vote for the person trying to help them.

If you see what I mean...

[Little John]

Like most of our exchanges Biff, lets just agree to disagree. Otherwise the thread is going to decend into..

"It is relevant, it isn't relevant, it is relevant, it is!, it isn't!!!" etc

The thread title is "Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53/week fastest petition ever?" What IDS can earn in an hour and historic examples of MPs attempting to live with meagre resources seems to me to be bang on topic.

I don't agree. Its completely irrelevant.

What is relevant is:

Is the £53 quid figure right?

Is this after Rent/Council tax/bills etc or before?

Can the amount of benefit this man is entitled to be lived on? After all the welfare state is (quite rightly) a safety net.

I punched the numbers into the benefits calculator on the "Turn2Us" website and I made it about £95 quid per week net of Coucil Tax and Rent. So it isn't clear what the numbers are - and that was only point I made in my original post**

**One thing to make clear - if the £53 quid is a genuine figure before Rent/Ctax then its too low and needs reviewing. The mistake IDS has made is not to query the number in the first place on the basis he wouldnt be aware of the numbers in each and every personal situation.

it's partially before council tax. How much before will depend on the area and size of council tax. That is to say councils now have the right to not have to rebate the full amount of council tax to benefit claimants. I personally know of someone who has to find a fiver a week from their unemployment benefit to pay for ther council tax. It is also potentially before part of the rent. This has actually been the case for some time as it crept in about 5 years ago if the folks who have told me about their own experiences are correct. That is to say, if the council deem the rent being asked for a property to be excessive, they can choose not to pay all of the rent. This means that defacto, the benefit claimant will have to top up the rent out of their unemployment benefit. This can be anywhere from a few quid to tens of quid per week.

There is no clearly defined set of criteria that the council uses to decide whether a rent is excessive or not. It just seems ot be the case that if they say it is, then it is. The trouble with this, though, is that, surprise, surprise, in recent months and years, since the councils started feeling the pinch following the banking crisis, suddenly they are deciding that far more rents are "excessive" than they hitherto thought.

Then there is the new IDS wheeze where, if you have brought your kids up in a 2 bed council house, if those kids leave home you will find that you are no longer entitled to the full rent rebate if you are unemployed or on a low-income. I think 15 quid per week is deducted off the rent rebate for every bedroom that is not in use.

So, the upshot of all the above is someone could find themselves with bugger all left to actually live on after these measures have all kicked in.

Homeless rates are going to soar.