IDS shows his Victorian values
by Claudia Wood
This week at Conservative Party conference, we saw the welfare reform team take to the stage. It was a similar to last year’s panel show format, as we heard from people who had been successfully helped back into work, interspersed with ministerial speeches, before the keynote address delivered by IDS.
There were a few early clangers – work and pensions minister Chris Grayling started the session stating the Government would ‘reassess IB claimants to try and give you the right support’. Clearly the ‘right support’ in the Government’s eyes is ‘less support’, as the reassessments are migrating around two thirds of incapacity benefit claimants on to JobSeeker’s Allowance (£26 less per week and on a penalty system for failing to take work).
The minister for disabled people, Maria Miller, then joined in. In the same breath as talking about Disability Living Allowance reform, she spoke of giving people who cannot work unconditional support – confusing DLA with an out of work benefit. This is indicative of the fact that whilst DLA is non-means tested – given to people regardless of employment status –its reform is increasingly being linked to incentivising work (perhaps to justify its 20 per cent reduction).
But these faux pas paled in significance once work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith took the floor. He began by making a clear link between worklessness and a ‘damaging, broken culture’ of poor parenting, family breakdown, violence, criminality – even citing the kidnap of Shannon Matthews and death of Baby Peter as examples. Welfare reform is a cure for psychopathy, apparently.
I felt transported to the Victorian era, where moral delinquency and worklessness were one and the same thing. I also wish I had counted the number of times IDS used ‘culture’ – damaging culture, broken culture, gang culture, ‘something for nothing culture’ and ‘IB culture’ – because this is telling.
‘Culture’ implies that unemployment is a social, collective phenomenon, where groups of workless youths have an expectation of getting something for nothing, which inherently links to their criminality. It is no accident that IDS embarked on a long monologue about the riots – the implication being that getting money for free through benefits makes people think they can loot shops.
Within this context, the veiled threats IDS that made, which seemed to portray the Work Programme as a punitive system – and where he claimed that ‘failure to seek work, take work and stay in work’ means ‘you will lose your benefits!’ – were totally in keeping with the narrative that unemployment was somehow a punishable offence.
Most striking was the incongruence between IDS’s moral crusade and the previous tone set by the guest speakers – the Work Programme provider immediately countered the ‘benefits culture’ line and said most of his clients were keen to work. The two former job seekers who had been helped by the Work Programme were full of praise for the system and spoke of their desperation to get a job. Such a positive tone was quickly dismantled.
IDS captured the entire speech in his closing line – he said he was undertaking ‘More than welfare reform , but social reform leading to social recovery’. No mention of economic recovery with higher employment – but ‘social recovery’, instilling correct moral behaviour through reduced benefits.
This was his big mistake. Caught up in the fire and brimstone, IDS forgot the first rule of a good speech – know your audience.
IDS spoke as if we are a nation of ‘hard working taxpayers’ on one side and a minority of morally corrupt unemployed on the other. But 2.51 million people are unemployed. He was speaking to hundreds of thousands of young graduates, desperate to start a career; middle-aged former-taxpayers, made redundant and frantic to get back to work to pay their mortgages; and disabled people overwhelmed with frustration at employers not willing to give them a chance.
All were looking for a speech targeted at them – majoring on job creation and re-skilling. By tarring them with the same brush as the rioters and Shannon Matthew’s mum, IDS really missed his mark.
Voltaire
£2788 per week (minimum) is what Ian Duncan Smith claims from the public purse (your tax/my tax) on top of his £! million worth according to Wikipedia. £51.82 per week is what A Job Seeker can claim from the public purse. This is Mr Iain Duncan Smiths Catholic morality in action. Greed or what?
Put another way he says he needs £145,000 plus a year to survive. On top of his £1 million. A Job seeker needs only£2694. The guy is a complete shit.
Mark Macho
IDS takes thousands of pounds a week from the public purse
for his own sustenance and that of his family in salary etc..
Wikipedia says he is already a millionaire. Yet he calls
into question the hundreds or tens taken by welfare claimants.
Something not quite right here , surely!
I have always been amazed how in Britain there are hardworking people WITH jobs who cannot afford a place to live. There is no equal playing field. Not to mention the disabilities and tragedies life can throw at us.
But there is a sense of entitlement and 'me first' that infects the leadership of British society to such an extent that it even results in hereditary office. The taxpayer subsidizes this system
and sustains these inequalites even to the point of helping wealthy
employers hire people to whom they are unable or unwilling to
provide a living. We are all in this but NOT together.Many people
that make enterprises succesful receive little remuneration when the
ship comes in. And some receive fantastic remuneration whether it
comes in or not.
British life is not a noble free competition for excellence but a rigged game with sops to prevent a revolution. And those that preside
are amazed at riots!!!
Oliver Twist
Iain Duncan Smith and his multi-millionaire Cabinet colleagues:
The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical
men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse,
they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have
discovered--the poor people liked it! It was a regular place of
public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there
was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper
all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all
play and no work. 'Oho!' said the board, looking very knowing;
'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all, in
no time.' So, they established the rule, that all poor people
should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not
they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by
a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the
water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a
corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal;
and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a
week, and half a roll of Sundays. They made a great many other
wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies,
which it is not necessary to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce
poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a
suit in Doctors' Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to
support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family
away from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no saying how
many applicants for relief, under these last two heads, might
have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been
coupled with the workhouse; but the board were long-headed men,
and had provided for this difficulty. The relief was inseparable
from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened people.
For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed, the
system was in full operation. It was rather expensive at first,
in consequence of the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the
necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which
fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week
or two's gruel. But the number of workhouse inmates got thin as
well as the paupers; and the board were in ecstasies.
The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with
a copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an
apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled
the gruel at mealtimes. Of this festive composition each boy had
one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of great public
rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.
The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with
their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed
this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being
nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the
copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the
very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves,
meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the
view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have
been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites.
Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow
starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and
wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and
hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a
small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he
had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some
night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to
be a weakly youth of tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye; and
they implicitly believed him. A council was held; lots were cast
who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and
ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.
The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in
his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper
assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served
out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel
disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver;
while his next neighbors nudged him. Child as he was, he was
desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from
the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand,
said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:
'Please, sir, I want some more.'
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He
gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some
seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The
assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.
'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned
him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.
The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed
into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman
in the high chair, said,
'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked
for more!'
There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every
countenance.
'For _more_!' said Mr. Limbkins. 'Compose yourself, Bumble, and
answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more,
after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'
'He did, sir,' replied Bumble.
'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white
waistcoat. 'I know that boy will be hung.'
Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An
animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant
confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of
the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would
take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words,
five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who
wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.
'I never was more convinced of anything in my life,' said the
gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and
read the bill next morning: 'I never was more convinced of
anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be
hung.'
As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated
gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of
this narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I
ventured to hint just yet, whether the life of Oliver Twist had
this violent termination or no.
Charles Dickens
Oliver you forgot to add about the characters like Mr Iain Duncan Smith and Mr Cameron in my novel......
The elderly man was a of man of wisdom and experience; ..he knew what was good for children; and ..he had a very accurate perception of what was good for himself. So, he appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to his own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them. Thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving himself a very great experimental philosopher.
Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who
had a great theory about a horse being able to live without
eating, and who demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own
horse down to a straw a day, and would unquestionably have
rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal on nothing at
all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to
have had his first comfortable bait of air. Unfortunately for,
the experimental philosophy of the female to whose protecting care
Oliver Twist was delivered over, a similar result usually
attended the operation of _her_ system; for at the very moment when
the child had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible
portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in
eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from
want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got
half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the
miserable little being was usually summoned into another world,
and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this.
Judith Martin
Allow me to play devil's advocate. Not all Victorian Values were bad, it's just that ever since Thatcher hymned them we've embraced the wrong ones.
While Dickens gave a whole new adjective to the concept of meanness and squalor, other Victorians were endowing libraries (Passmore Edwards) and galleries (Tate, Laing in Newcastle, Lever in Bolton), giving truly vast amounts to housing the poor (Peabody, Angela Coutts, Nathaniel Rothschild, Canon and Henrietta Barnett), founding the National Trust in order to give fresh air and exercise to the huddled masses (Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter, Canon Rawnsley), and generally doing many of the things we've come to hope will be provided by the public purse.
That purse is only really filled by taxing those with huge amounts of money (the descendants of Rothschild, Tate etc.) - the system collapses when governments become unwilling to do that.
Worse still, the governments that refuse to implement a fair tax regime don't just neglect all those wonderful benefits from another era - unproductive assets - but are quite happy to flog them off.
The presence of canons in the list above merely highlights how dismally silent the church has been on such issues since the lamented Robert Runcie, Rowan Williams's episode in the New Statesman notwithstanding.
I wonder what Dickens or any of the philanthropic Victorians would have thought of funding culture largely through a gambling tax on the poor?
David Vinter
Well surely things were better in Victorian times than 100 years earlier. I was a boy through WW2, and things often got very difficult for some, especially in cities. My grandfather, a methodist said that it said nothing in the Bible about not setting snares for rabbits, very tasty in pies!
Bianca De-Chandos
Throw a few pieces of broken bread in your back garden
and you will enjoy seeing the birds feed on them, take a whole un-sliced loaf and do the same and you'll see Avian war on your lawn as birds of all sizes fight for a bite : The same resources distributed differently produce different 'cultures'. We live in a world in which we are told that we need to “work to eat” (which is an artificial rule pretending to be a natural self-evident law). In times past it may have been a natural law but not now and not for many many years has it been close to being true. Every year people like me produce "labour saving"...labour reducing...unemployment creating devices, processes, software... and yet the system we still use says that only those few remaining in the production industries 'deserve to eat'.
This does produce psychosis among those trying to stay in the 'labour' system and among those trying to get in or get back in. It's time to have a new system. I've designed two : One I call NEFS - Net Export Financial Simulation - it imitates all the financial benefits a Chronically Net Exporting Society has at home - Like Japan, China... without the waste of giving stuff away to foreigners. The other system I designed I call “Points” - it stops using 'money' altogether and instead uses Points - it imitates the financial system of a super advanced Alien Race who have robot-ised all production and who needed a new way to get some money now the ‘get a job option’ is a total dead end - whatever these Aliens are really using - we need half of it : The Financial system we are using is artificial – it’s made up - and was made up in the pre-machine age. It’s totally unsuitable for the computerised mechanised world low employment age we now live it – we need a Modern Financial System designed for our modern age – a new game – a new set of rules : http://netexportfinancialsimulation.wordpress.com/2011
Seeking enlightenment through suffering
For the first time in my life I can say that the game of politics and the narrow minded view point of politicians does directly influence my life.
I grew up in Scotland, some might say a privileged upbringing, but it felt little of the sort and I still do not consider it as such. I was sent to boarding school at the age of 9 and after two schools and ten years I entered adult life.
My experience of boarding school, Glenalmond, was awful, being bullied consistently, feeling powerless, alone and suicidal. I have also come to understand the behaviour of my father as being possibly OCD, with some of the elements of a Personality Disorder.
I have sought medical support since I was twenty five and fifteen years later, I am still struggling emotionally. My diagnosis a few years ago was depression, but this has now been updated to also include a mixed personality disorder.
This on going struggle with anxiety, fear and depression effects my ability to function and work to a huge extent. I come from a family with a strong work ethic and so feel quite ashamed by this.
I have claimed ESA since 2009 and over the last 18 months I have had two DWP medical assessments which I have failed and then had two court case appeal which I have succeeded.
The effect on my state of mind has been highly damaging. To sit in front of a judge and explain my feelings, moods, inability to work is a sickening experience I would not wish upon anyone.
Each DWP medical assessment I had lasted between 20 - 40 minutes and I scored '0' for every indicator, yet to be on the two year medical programme for personality disorders I have to have been seen by two highly trained and established doctors. I see three other psychotherapist per week. The result of this is an over powering sens of rage that I have to be put through the mill but the DWP,with a system that is completely designed to fail as many people as possible even though they have debilitation conditions.
So now that I have passed my last appeal and I can concentrate on the therapy course I now find that the government cuts have led to my hospital ending my programme stage 5 months early.
Every day for me is a battle, a battle to present myself as sorted to some friends, a battle to stay positive about the future, a battle to survive with very little money, a battle to maintain an even mood and not obsess.
So if that does top it then, I found out three weeks ago my landlord is terminating the contracts of 6 flats in my building, this is as a direct result of cuts to the London Housing Allowance and landlords wishes to earn enough from their rental.
So next time Ian Duncan Smith say he has my best interests at heart, hmmm, let me see, do I trust him or anyone in the current government? No
And you wonder why there is a sense of there being a broken society, it's because it is being broken by the very one's who run it.
As with the Arab Spring, I look forward to our society gaining their self respect, and bringing a new Spring here.
The one thing I have learnt in the last few years of my course, is that you can be wrong for how you feel. Well I'm angry.
Malcolm Rasala
Why the surprise. For, this is, as the Cat Lady called is the Nasty Party. They are driven by two factors hatred and greed. Their Daily Mail continuous angerwallows in hate. It is their DNA. They hate Europe. They hate immigrants. They hate welfare state claimants.
All irrational of course. IDA and his Tory MP's all live off the public purse. They themselves take as much as they possibly can from our taxes for their personal needs - MP's pay, expenses, MP's pensions - but lo and behold if the poor and unemployed do. Its OK for IDS to pay himself over £140,000 a year from our taxes. But for a poor person to claim not even sufficient to feed his family O that is unadulterated greed. Hypocrisy or what?
Ask yourself seriously what the existence of Iain Duncan Smith adds to the world? Would the world be a worse place if he and his fellows were not here skiving off our hard earned taxes? This is the Party that came into power inheriting a growing economy. What have they and their Tory banker friends done to it in just 18 months? Looming disaster.
IDS and his Victorian thinking is deeply immoral. It is driven by hatred and greed. He himself is a total hypocrite. He lines his pockets from the public purse. But he seeks to deny the poorest to do so. He is like the most mean spirited character in a Dickens novel. His thinking is the hard hearted thinking of Scrooge. He is a 21st century Scrooge. We can only hope he himself comes to suffer as did Scrooge.