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Dear Iain Duncan Smith, thanks for nothing

Dcdrac

Philosopher
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
5,141
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/24/dear-iain-duncan-smith-thanks-nothing

"Dear Iain Duncan Smith, thanks for nothing

After 15 months trying to live on £30 a week, I have a job. But I am worried about those your government continues to persecute"

"Dear Iain,

I've got BIG News! I've got a job! Amazing isn't it? Fifteen months after being made redundant, I've finally managed to secure one of the many jobs that you regularly claim in the media are out there for the taking. We were beginning to think it would never happen. So many interviews, so much hope, followed by disappointment after disappointment. I don't know where these jobs are that you speak of. Perhaps they're in London, because, be honest – you don't have much knowledge of towns and cities outside the capital, do you? Actually, you're right, there are jobs out there, but I'm not entirely sure you're aware of the stumbling blocks preventing folk from getting them.

Getting a job isn't quite as easy as just sending your CV to a prospective employer. Perhaps if you understood that, you might not continue to spout your patronising nonsense in the media, and further continue to get the backs up of those who genuinely want to work, and do not under any circumstances live off benefits as (you call it) a lifestyle choice. You make idle comments about how you could live off £53 a week if you had to, but that's the point, Iain, you will never have to, and furthermore it's likely you'll never want for anything for the rest of your life, whether that be a job, a home, or financial security. You are preaching about things you have absolutely no knowledge of whatsoever. You are using the teeny weeny minority of benefit claimants who do live a satisfactory standard of life to attempt to prove your point, and in doing so you are destroying those who are genuinely struggling."
 
Get on yer bike, oh workshy loafer!
You don't know how lucky you are to be living in Great Britain in these most challenging of times. When I were a lad...etc.:D

Congrats on the job.
 
Get on yer bike, oh workshy loafer!
You don't know how lucky you are to be living in Great Britain in these most challenging of times. When I were a lad...etc.:D

Congrats on the job.

Dcdrac seems to have problems using the quote feature.... All of that is from the article.
 
Dcdrac seems to have problems using the quote feature.... All of that is from the article.

Indeed.

Do you have a point Dcdrac? A comment? A position?

Personally, I find it highly irritating (and rude) when someone lazily quotes a slab of text from a newspaper or website without comment.
 
I am not bing lazy but drawing it to your attention as a point of discussion it is a difference in style that is all.

Iti is clear though that the wrong people are getting hit by all this.

And there is no neeed to get personal.
 
I am not bing lazy but drawing it to your attention as a point of discussion it is a difference in style that is all.

Since there is nothing new in the comment why do you think it is worthy of disscussion.

Iti is clear though that the wrong people are getting hit by all this.

Since IDS was not in power when "this" started why are you bringing him into the debate.
 
Since IDS was not in power when "this" started why are you bringing him into the debate.
While he may not have done all of the work in question, he has made some comments that some have taken issue with. The obvious one was of course when he said that he could live on£53 if he had to, when in fact he never has and never will since he can live on a tremendous inheritance, but there have been plenty of others.
 
Indeed.

Do you have a point Dcdrac? A comment? A position?

Personally, I find it highly irritating (and rude) when someone lazily quotes a slab of text from a newspaper or website without comment.

Very rare I agree with you, but here is one time.
 
While he may not have done all of the work in question, he has made some comments that some have taken issue with. The obvious one was of course when he said that he could live on£53 if he had to, when in fact he never has and never will since he can live on a tremendous inheritance, but there have been plenty of others.

He actually did a Mitt Romney, because he said that he had been on the breadline in the 1980s and unable to afford rent.

Like many people in such a situation he ended up living in his wife's parents' estate...

Unlike others this wasn't a housing estate but one owned by his wife's father the 5th Baron Cottesloe

It also misses the point that it is quite easy to live with a small amount of day to day spending if you have large assets to cushion you, so you don't need to worry about, your cheap clothes needing replacing, or repaying the loan for your cheap fridge before your cooker breaks.

It is also easy if you know it is only for a short time.
 
He actually did a Mitt Romney, because he said that he had been on the breadline in the 1980s and unable to afford rent.

Like many people in such a situation he ended up living in his wife's parents' estate...

Unlike others this wasn't a housing estate but one owned by his wife's father the 5th Baron Cottesloe

It also misses the point that it is quite easy to live with a small amount of day to day spending if you have large assets to cushion you, so you don't need to worry about, your cheap clothes needing replacing, or repaying the loan for your cheap fridge before your cooker breaks.

It is also easy if you know it is only for a short time.

Easier, too, if one is willing to break the law like Iain Dunkin Stool!
 
Easier, too, if one is willing to break the law like Iain Dunkin Stool!

How did he break the law? Not heard of this one.

I was looking forward to seeing what IDS's reforms would give us. Our benefits system is a mess. For example, it's ridiculous that taking a part-time job could actually leave you worse off, making it harder for the unemployed to get back into work and difficult for small businesses to employ casual labour. But all he's done so far, is take us back to the Eighties, with a vindictive government stigmatising the victims of its own policies.
 
Easier, too, if one is willing to break the law like Iain Dunkin Stool!

Did he actually break the law?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/prepare-your-lachrymals-for-the-heartrending-tale-of-iain-duncan-smiths-trying-months-of-hardship-8563297.html

Days after IDS’s chat with the Daily Mail’s Andrew Pierce, the lachrymals still seep over how, when he left the army in 1981, poverty obliged him to “live illegally” with his future wife Betsy in a bedsit.

Precisely which legislation the Outlaw Dozy Fails broke is uncertain. It may well have been the since-repealed Censorious Landlady (Living In Sin) Act, 1956, which carried a minimum sentence of concerted tutting and old-fashioned looks.
 
The Guardian isn't really aimed at working class people.

Whether it is aimed at the working class or not, a number of working class people either read it or have read it. My Grandfather, a miner, read read the Guardian every day.

I doubt in any case whether all of IDS's household is working class in any case.
 

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