Iain Duncan Smith

Is this government right to set out a new criteria by which poverty in Britain is measured or is it just a case of moving the goal posts to help them meet a target?

Poverty Measure To Be Redefined By Iain Duncan Smith

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/14/poverty-measure-to-be-redefined_n_1595677.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

its just unbelievable all of this astradt but sums them up so very well. but then unemployment always seems to be part of there economic plan. so what not just ban poverty as well. then they will not have to look at the figures at all.

Any measurement of poverty can only be relative. What we call poverty in the West might be regarded as wealth by some citizens of places like Bangladesh. Ivan doesn't like to use the cliche "Politics of envy" but a lot of polemic is directed at those fortunates at the top of the pile, even though it is their income which inflates the figure for "average" wages.

Poverty is usually described as a percentage of that average, so can frequently represent more in benefits than could be earned by working. That anomaly must surely be corrected in the interests of everyone.

oftenwrong wrote:Any measurement of poverty can only be relative. What we call poverty in the West might be regarded as wealth by some citizens of places like Bangladesh. Ivan doesn't like to use the cliche "Politics of envy" but a lot of polemic is directed at those fortunates at the top of the pile, even though it is their income which inflates the figure for "average" wages.

Poverty is usually described as a percentage of that average, so can frequently represent more in benefits than could be earned by working. That anomaly must surely be corrected in the interests of everyone.

I think poverty to a Tory is when your down to your last £100,000 in the bank. Its always been my own view that they have never supported and poor person, as too them that is what charities are therefor.

Polls show that the strongest revulsion against benefits-cheats comes from those in roughly similar personal circumstances. Not unnaturally, they feel it is their money which is being misappropriated.

Apart from that, few of us can see the logic in it paying people not to work.

Did anybody watch question time the other night? Peter Hitchins summed up governments pretty well. They all promise what they believe the plebs want, they then promptly avoid changing the system to benefit anybody not corroded with money. Open the doors to unlimited immigration, pay them to not work, allow them to bring their families over, then listen to the indigent population who without money complain about lack of public services and yet they still vote for the prats to return. Funny world innit?

Original with links at: http://wp.me/p2sftc-4z7



Last week in the Commons Esther McVey, Under-Secretary of State for Work & pensions, made a startling and clearly unwilling admission: that 200,000 more children would be forced into poverty by the decision to limit benefit increases to 1% for the next 3 years:

We estimate that the uprating measures in 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 will result in around an extra 200,000 children being deemed by this measure to be in relative income poverty compared to uprating benefits by CPI.

Of course, being a Tory minister – and it is such an inconvenient thing to have to admit, so who can blame her – she couldn’t just provide a straight answer, and went into convoluted detail about why it wasn’t ‘real‘ poverty and how the government was looking for a ‘better’ way to measure it (presumably one that doesn’t look quite so damning for her party):

The Government strongly believes looking at relative income in isolation is not a helpful measure to track progress towards our target of eradicating child poverty..The Government is currently consulting on better measures of child poverty that will better reflect the reality of child poverty in the UK today.

However, it’s sometimes surprising what people give away without meaning to when they’re trying to be clever. In her attempt to dismiss the significance of the impact of yet another destructive coalition measure, rather than justifying herself and her government, Ms McVey inadvertently damned her government and revealed that the true impact of the coalition government on ordinary people has been worse than she was trying to make it appear.

Ms McVey tried to assert that ‘relative’ child poverty is a meaningless measure because

In times of economic growth, the relative poverty line tends to rise. While the economy grew from 2003-04 to 2008-09, the Government spent over £300 billion in working-age welfare and tax credits, yet the proportion of the population in relative income poverty remained broadly flat..In times of recession the relative poverty line tends to fall. In 2010-11, 300,000 children moved out of relative poverty largely due to reductions in median incomes.

In other words, because relative poverty is defined as anything less than 60% of the nation’s median income, when the median income rises, the threshold for relative poverty rises too; when it falls. the relative poverty line falls too, and a certain level of income might be above the line in recession but below it in a strong economy.

How does this damn the Tory-led government? Simple. McVey just admitted that there are 300,000 children who are currently not counted as being in poverty just because we’re in a recession.

Around 3.6 million children in the UK are officially living in poverty – a scandal in one of the world’s richest nations. But Ms McVey admitted that there will be another 200,000 by 2015 – and that the 3.6 million figure should already read 3.9 million. In fact, since the economy has fallen even further since the 2010-11 period, Ms McVey’s 300,000 probably means 500,000 or more. But let’s be cautious for now and assume her figure is correct.

So, taking Ms McVey’s 200,000, plus the 300,000 she says are in poverty but not measured as such because of the recession, we have an additional 500,000 children in poverty even by the most cautious calculation, either because of the 1% benefits cap or because they’re simply not recorded for technical reasons.

Unfortunately, we’re nowhere near done yet. First of all, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that 800,000 children will also enter poverty by 2020 because of the government’s squeeze on tax credits and benefits, and the impact of universal credit. These 800,000 children are in addition to Ms McVey’s calculations. Let’s be very generous to the Tories and assume that all the 300,000 children who are currently not technically in poverty for technical reasons will be among these 800,000. That still adds 500,000 children – individual, vulnerable children, not merely a statistic – to our total.

We’re still not done. As I pointed out last year, the change from Disability Allowance (DLA) to Personal Independence Payments (PIP) will push between 85,000 (in an extremely unlikely ‘best case’ scenario) and several hundred thousand disabled people below the poverty line.

Since we were generous to the Tories just now, we’ll be more realistic here and assume a middle-range figure for the number of disabled people pushed into poverty: 200,000. Assuming only half of them have children (again, being very cautious – I can’t bring myself to be ‘conservative’ just now), and that those who do have children have only 2, that brings us to 200,000 more children pushed into poverty by the DLA-PIP change that have not been accounted for in any of the earlier estimates.

And in fact, I’m still being too generous to the government. When I wrote the article about disabled people being pushed into poverty, I based my calculations on the stated intention of the Dept for Work and Pensions (DWP) to remove 500,000 people from disability benefits. But Ms McVey’s statement to the House last month revealed that the government is expecting to remove a far higher percentage of disabled people from benefit eligibility.

If that percentage is maintained throughout the reassessment of all 3.2 million benefit claimants, it will mean up to 1.9 million disabled people having their benefits cut off or seriously reduced instead of 500,000 – and the number of child dependents affected will be commensurately higher. But let’s stick with the lower figure for now so that no one can accuse us of exaggerating the scale of the disaster.

Now (at last – unless anyone points out another group that I’ve missed), we can sum up:



So, while Esther McVey was eventually forced to admit to 200,000 more children being forced into poverty by the government’s latest measure, we can see that she was being far too ‘conservative’.

The real figure is (at least, and I’ve been very cautious with my figures) 1,200,000.

That’s one million, two hundred thousand.

Children.

By a government led by a party that would like to think of itself as the party of family values.

Ms McVey tried to be clever, and inadvertently added damning evidence to the massive tally already stacked against this heartless government.

A government which masquerades as standing for fairness, for ‘doing the right thing’ and for protecting the vulnerable.

It is not. It never has been, and it most definitely is not now. It is the party that protects the wealthy at the expense of the vulnerable and the dispensable.

Even when they’re children.[quote]

A possible source of practical information can be found here ....

http://onlineservices.cpag.org.uk/

great organisation

4 million children - one in three - are currently living in poverty in the UK, one of the highest rates in the industrialised world. This is a shocking figure given the wealth of our nation. What’s the Tory solution? Change the definition of poverty!

I joked on Twitter that the Bullingdon Club’s definition of poverty is when daddy refuses to pay for any more Bollinger and you are forced to drink Veuve-Clicquot. The essential point is still there – poverty is all about not having enough money. Well it was until Iain Duncan Smith decided to redefine it.

The definition of poverty in the UK at present is living on 60% or less of average income after housing costs. Duncan Smith believes that a wider definition of what constitutes poverty will “give a better picture of what it means to grow up experiencing deep disadvantage". He is critical of the last Labour government's focus on income as the significant cause of, and solution to, poverty.

Even though there aren’t enough jobs to go round (and never will be under politicians who follow Milton Friedman’s belief that something approaching full employment causes inflation), some Tories are arguing that unemployment, not lack of income, is the cause of poverty. On a morning TV show on 27 May 2010, Iain Duncan Smith famously re-iterated that chilling phrase from above the door of Auschwitz - “work makes you free”. However, Owen Jones, a columnist for ‘The Independent’, has noted: “Cameron says work is the only way out of poverty. He doesn't mention that most households in poverty are working households.” Duncan Smith also said: "It cannot be right that experiences so vital to childhood, like seeing a parent go out to work or growing up in a stable family, are not reflected in our understanding of child poverty."

Professor John Hills of the LSE said there was widespread support for the idea of looking more broadly at what causes poverty, but warned against trying to compress social factors, such as whether a child's parents are divorced, unemployed or unwell, into the measure of a family's income. He added that the result would be confusing and would have the effect of masking rising numbers of people in poverty. No doubt that is Duncan Smith’s intention, deliberately downplaying the importance of money just as a series of government policies will reduce the incomes of poor families.

Professor Jonathan Bradshaw of Unicef says the government is "trying to move the goalposts" at a time when child poverty is increasing rapidly. He described the consultation document as “the worst paper setting down government policy direction he had ever read”, and he said it read more like it had been "plagiarised from a right-wing think-tank tract". Bradshaw said the new approach would not work because it attempted to "combine all sorts of things that are the consequence of poverty or may be even be the causes of poverty, but are not a measure of child poverty".

Several children's charities have expressed concern about the direction of government policy. Enver Solomon of the National Children's Bureau said the government should urgently review its approach to child poverty and look at methods used successfully elsewhere in the world to tackle the problem.

The Department for Work and pensions has replied: “It's disappointing that a handful of academics are backing the current approach to tackling child poverty, which has failed far too many children in this country." As one person who commented underneath this story in ‘The Guardian’ said: “When I hear the word academic I reach for my revolver, eh? The DWP is little better than the Gestapo these days, a crude political tool of degenerate politicians seeking to mask their wickedness by moving the goalposts.”

Sources used:-

http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/14/child-poverty-ministers-downplaying-importance-income?comment

Iain Duncan Smith: a quiet man with so much to be quiet about

A universal welfare state is the essential bedrock of a civilised country. A civilised country ensures that no one goes without healthcare because they can’t afford it, no one is treated as if worthless because they cannot work, and that anyone who loses their job needn’t fear destitution for themselves or for their family if they don’t find another job instantly. A civilised country ensures that no one needs to work when they are too young or too old or too disabled or too ill. This is not a system that can be replaced by random acts of charity: to become civilised, we pay taxes and national insurance and we all benefit.

Iain Duncan Smith became Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in May 2010 – a role he has held ever since, despite efforts by David Cameron to unseat him in the 2012 reshuffle. He has virtually no further-education qualifications and spent several months on the dole after leaving the Scots Guards in the recession of 1981. But the next year he married a very wealthy woman, the daughter of a very wealthy man, and he and his wife and four children still live in a house rented from his father-in-law on his wife’s father’s estate: he became an MP in 1992, inheriting Norman Tebbit’s safe constituency of Chingford. Whatever Iain Duncan Smith’s experience of unemployment thirty-two years ago, it’s safe to say that in thirty years he hasn’t had money worries – except when he became Leader of the Opposition and it was discovered he’d given his wife one of those plum “assistant” jobs which used to be a bonus for the spouse or child of an MP.

Thought this numpty merits a thread for discussion of his misdeeds and deficiencies. I'll start the ball rolling with this, which I found at http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/iain-duncan-smith-the-quiet-man-with-so-much-to-be-quiet-about/ - please visit for the full article.

bobby wrote:Is this the same Iain Duncan Smith who claimed on his CV, That he was educated at the University of Perugia whereas in reality he only took some Italian lessons.
Even his Surname has some doubt about it, as the Duncan part of his double barrelled name was actually taken from a Christian name and not as should be the joined surname of an ancestor.

This excuse for a man really is full of shit, and obviously there are feelings of inadequacy in the family or why else the gross exaggerations re his education and the addition of a Christian name to the correct Smiff, sorry I mean Smith.

Hi skywalker & Bobby

It is scarey someone that has no Educational qualifications is a Minster, I have known for a while that he is nothing but a dunder head, not like the rest of them educated at Eton and the Oxford or Cambridge, no wonder he had to find a rich wife living off his wife i wonder if he enjoys being a kept man POUNCE.

The Guardian's description can be found here:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/page/0,,902161,00.html

oftenwrong wrote:The Guardian's description can be found here:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/page/0,,902161,00.html

Thanks for that OW it was very eye opening and a great source of information on the baldy IDS.

A poseur as Secretary of State and a pseudonym-collecting internet con-man as party chair - how on earth anyone can't see the Tories as the crooks they are is beyond me.

skwalker1964 wrote:A poseur as Secretary of State and a pseudonym-collecting internet con-man as party chair - how on earth anyone can't see the Tories as the crooks they are is beyond me.

I don't believe you are on your own in your view skywalker, I just wish he had not choked on the request set up via the online petition to have him live on the £57.00 per week after paying for their extra bedroom

I don't suppose anyone expected him to 'accept the bet' - but to claim 'I could if I had to' was just unbelievably crass even for him.

At the very kindest interpretation, lacking proper dignity and a sense of his position

What we learned from John Major's government is that Tories, once in power, think they can walk on water - and get away with it.

In this session of Parliament that sensation persists.

bobby wrote:Some years ago, the Thatcher arse licker Michael Portillo made a TV programme showing him living 1 week on benefits. They chose a Family for him to stay with and their usual budget to manage with. Unfortunately I can’t remember the outcome of the programme (perhaps someone could remind me), but what was blatantly obvious was that it was made in a week in the summer, where the need for extra heating wasn’t there, and at a time neither of the kids needed a new pair of shoe’s or an overcoat. The same I’m certain would be done for the snide Iain Dumkopf Schmidt if he actually took up the challenge. I’m sure that if all he had to purchase was food for himself alone, then yes he probably could just about manage, but I wonder what the outcome would be if it was for a month or more, when he would have to face all the other bills. They would manipulate the programme to suit, just as they do the figures on the economy and unemployment.

If I remember rightly bobby he FAILED and gave up after three days, there was another Tory MP that tried it in Newcastle he only lasted from the Friday until Monday and gave up saying he was sick of eating beans on toast for every meal.

bobby wrote:The same I’m certain would be done for the snide Iain Dumkopf Schmidt if he actually took up the challenge. I’m sure that if all he had to purchase was food for himself alone, then yes he probably could just about manage, but I wonder what the outcome would be if it was for a month or more, when he would have to face all the other bills. They would manipulate the programme to suit, just as they do the figures on the economy and unemployment.

Well, if he actually took up the challenge, he'd be living on £53 a week for a year, which would make it a lot harder to manipulate - but of course he'll never do it. His time is far too important and must be spent on his witchhunt crusade rabble-rousing reforms..

bobby wrote:Perhaps we could get Eric Pickles to have a go at living on £57 per week. I say this as a matter of fairness, I mean how long could he survive off his blubber before actually having to use part of the £57.

I think that Pickles would last for weeks on his blubber and he could put his £57.00 into the bank beside the rest of his Millions.

"Forgive them for they know not what they do"

IN THIS CASE It's --do NOT forgive them for they know EXACTLY what they do.

Mel wrote:"Forgive them for they know not what they do"

IN THIS CASE It's --do NOT forgive them for they know EXACTLY what they do.

They have always known what they do Mel, and have always known what they where going to do once in power.

The "other" Tory MP was Matthew Parris and it was in 1984.  He wrote an account of this in yesterday's "Times" ("Times 2" section), Thursday April 4th.  Until I read this yesterday I never realised that they in fact ended it early after he ran out of money, but for the viewing punters, at the time, they pretended it had been for a full week.  By the way this was what led on to his now successful media career.  A week's Supplementary Benefit at the time was £26.80.  As for IDS, did you know when he stood for the Tories in Bradford West in 1987 he used a hyphen (Duncan-Smith) ?  Or was the hyphen a fake to make him sound posh I wonder ?

Hi Rothbury welcome to the forum, did you know that Nadine Dorris tried it too but it was done by one of the TV stations but she was caught with a FIFTY Pound note down her BRA and the program was stopped by the producers.

Rothbury said: did you know when he stood for the Tories in Bradford West in 1987 he used a hyphen (Duncan-Smith) ? Or was the hyphen a fake to make him sound posh I wonder ?

As it happens his Father ( I hate to have to admit he had one) was a fighter pilot and fought in the Battle of Britain and went by the name Duncan- Smith, I believe it must have been an earlier ancestor who chose to raise the name Smith to something more exotic and added the Duncan, which was in fact someone's Christian name, so wrongly used, but then they were all Tories so what more should we expect of them.

bobby wrote:Rothbury said: did you know when he stood for the Tories in Bradford West in 1987 he used a hyphen (Duncan-Smith) ? Or was the hyphen a fake to make him sound posh I wonder ?

As it happens his Father ( I hate to have to admit he had one) was a fighter pilot and fought in the Battle of Britain and went by the name Duncan- Smith, I believe it must have been an earlier ancestor who chose to raise the name Smith to something more exotic and added the Duncan, which was in fact someone's Christian name, so wrongly used, but then they were all Tories so what more should we expect of them.

I have just thought of something and it is not very nice bobby, my mothers maiden name was Smith oh God do not say that way back we could be related to that nasty backstud.

IDS more like IBS found this for the treatment of ~ now perhaps if only he was just as easily remedied...

I wonder if he knows Deadly Nightshade we think of him more as a good cure for BOWEL PROBLEMS.  

Not too sure Redflag, but I was only leaning to toward the point of how much of a right pain in the derrière he is  

But Deadly Nightshade the entire Tory party are a right pain in Posterior, that is why come May 2015 the 99% of the public will don there BOVVER BOOTS and give the Tories a right good KICKING.

From http://wp.me/p2sftc-7un

The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) has issued a new rebuke to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) for its abuse of statistics to misrepresent the effects of its benefits cap in forcing people into work. The UKSA also issued a letter to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) outlining its findings.

It’s worth seeing both in full:






These documents are as emphatically damning as the official language of such letters can make them. But they address what is far from the worst government abuse – of statistics and of the people the numbers represent.

As I showed last month, the government has falsely claimed that benefit ‘reforms’ caused almost 900,000 people to abandon their claims for Employment Support Allowance (ESA) rather than face a medical assessment, to make it appear that a huge number of claims were false and people suddenly decided to stop claiming all at once.

In fact, the government was adding up the normal monthly ‘churn’ or ‘off-flow’ of 18-20,000 people whose claims end before the very lengthy assessment process is complete – because they got better, found work even if they were still ill, or just decided they no longer needed to complain. These figures have been constant for years – adding them is nonsense – and using them to represent some sudden flood of abandoned claims is nothing more than a lie.

I’ve therefore written the following email to Andrew Dilnot CBE, the Chair of the UKSA:

Subject: DWP ESA off-flow abuse

Dear Mr Dilnot,

I read with interest your censure of the DWP for misuse of statistics relating to people returning to work because of the supposed effects of the benefit cap.

I wish to make a complaint on a similar matter – the government’s claims that 878,300 claimants discontinued their ESA claims rather than face capability assessment when the figures are an incorrect cumulative use of typical monthly off-flow ‘churn’. For more information, please see:

http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/govts-disability-distortion-even-worse-than-it-looked/

The abuse of these statistics to wrongly demonise ESA claimants as skivers and to justify the government’s further targeting of disabled people, is utterly unacceptable and I would appreciate your organisation taking a close look at the matter and issuing its assessment.
Thank you.

Steve Walker
The SKWAWKBOX blog

Can I ask you to do the same, to make sure that the UKSA’s attention is properly drawn to this malignant abuse of statistics and that the government is properly ‘spanked’ again?

The email address is:

authority.enquiries@statistics.gsi.gov.uk

Thank you!

Government Ministers are barricading themselves in to avoid giving explanations. One reason is the imminent announcement by Gideon Osborne of severe cuts in their budgets.

Another star, Michael Gove, has evidently instructed his staff to delay any response to the enquiries routinely made by Constituency MP's.

Surely, because of the persistent lies and manipulation of figures he feeds the public, Iain Duncan Smith should be dismissed from his post.

Pressure should be brought by Labour on Cameron to 'sack' IDS.