Ian Duncan Smith thinks he can live on £53 a week. Lets make him

[wellquickwoody]

Where is the link backing this up? I can't find that level of detail on the Guardian article.

My mistake, The Telegraph, '£53 per week after rent and bills'.

 

[HOFNSKIN]

Do not be taken in by Duncan Smith, he is one of the biggest right wing hypocrites in this nasty coalition


"That he "earned his own money" is fairly questionable. He went to Sandhurst (father was a decorated Group Captain in WWII), joined the Scots Guards (rising dizzyingly from second lieutenant to captain in six years), claimed the dole (!) for some months on leaving the army, worked at GEC-Marconi to sell armaments and Jane's Information Group to sell armaments-related media, then got elected to Parliament in 1992. His "business" career lasted 11 years, since when he has been paid by the state several times the national average salary as an MP. Which he doesn't really need anyway, as his wife's daddy has an ancestral estate which he lives on. And he still saw fit to pay said heiress wife a taxpayer-funded £15,000 salary as his "secretary" for a while in 2001, which beats duck houses. Along the way he has claimed child benefit for each of his four privately-educated children and confessed to two separate instances of lying about his non-existent academic record. David Bennett, a man interviewed before Smith on the Today programme this morning and whom he blithely disregarded, has worked for low wages since he was 17 and doesn't want to have to claim housing benefit. I think he said he is a carer now. A small proportion of benefits claimants may be "scroungers", most aren't; either way we don't pay low-achieving government ministers 134K a year to exercise their unearned sense of moral superiority."

 

[beorhthelm]

£50 after bills and rent is pretty ok. alot of people do that without receipt of any benefits. i think its pretty sad that we think this is exceptional, that you couldnt live on that much for weekly expenses. we've become far too accostumed to far too much luxury, but think its basic needs.

 

[Deleted member 18477]

£53 a week to survive yea. To live? To actually try and put money back into the economy other than just buying food? A lot harder!

Surviving is not living FFS Ian you ****!

 

[wellquickwoody]

£53 a week to survive yea. To live? To actually try and put money back into the economy other than just buying food? A lot harder!

Surviving is not living FFS Ian you ****!

So, after working all week to pay my own housing costs , fuel bills, council tax, income tax, national insurance and food and clothing requirements, you seem to think that I should not only pay for someone else's housing costs, fuel bills, council tax, food and clothing requirements, but that I should also pay for them to 'live'? If you mean have a beer, go to the cinema or have a holiday, tell you what, come and ask me personally and see what response you get!

Something for nothing generation by any chance?

 

[1066familyman]

We have all been conned here, You should only get benefits if you can't work, people who work shouldn't get benefits - they shouldn't need them!

Mixing up the two allows the issue to be clouded, it allows big corporations to avoid paying liveable wage rates whilst also destroying competition from small businesses and it allows governments to avoid their responsibility to provide jobs and a welfare system.

Exactly!

Tax payers subsidising share holders dividends & excessive executives pay/bonuses when corporations pay below a living wage so low paid workers have to be topped up with tax credits etc. Also, tax payers subsidising the profits of buy to let landlords/ladies in the shape of the huge housing benefit bill because there isn't enough social housing to meet the need and successive Governments can't manage the housing market properly. They are far more pressing concerns that this Government has no intention of dealing with.

But no, let's target benefit recipients as the enemy of the tax payer As for living on £53 a week? Surely your energy bills have to come out of that too?, because as far as I'm aware there's no benefit that pays for that, bar a slightly reduced bill on a 'social tariff'. Also, running a car is out then that's for sure and with public transport in this country being both expensive and shite then good luck job hunting unless it's within walking distance. Amongst numerous other points, you can also forget equal sports opportunities for kids from unemployed households too because currently I spend on average £10 a week (during the season) in subs and travel expenses to keep just one of my kids playing for a local football club. Meanwhile, there's obscene amounts of money concentrated at the top of our NATIONAL game, and they talk about investment in the grassroots? Do me a favour! It's a haves v have nots society and the gap is growing, and that can only spell trouble.

But carry on IDS, I'm sure you mean well

 

[e77]

The amount of working households claiming Housing Benefits doubled between 2008 and 2012. In work poverty is the price we pay for (relatively) low unemployment and a competitive labour market.

In other words ordinary working people suffering to help out government figures and company balance sheets.

It is an absolute disgrace.

 

[wellquickwoody]

Exactly!

Tax payers subsidising share holders dividends & excessive executives pay/bonuses when corporations pay below a living wage so low paid workers have to be topped up with tax credits etc. Also, tax payers subsidising the profits of buy to let landlords/ladies in the shape of the huge housing benefit bill because there isn't enough social housing to meet the need and successive Governments can't manage the housing market properly. They are far more pressing concerns that this Government has no intention of dealing with.

But no, let's target benefit recipients as the enemy of the tax payer As for living on £53 a week? Surely your energy bills have to come out of that too?, because as far as I'm aware there's no benefit that pays for that, bar a slightly reduced bill on a 'social tariff'. Also, running a car is out then that's for sure and with public transport in this country being both expensive and shite then good luck job hunting unless it's within walking distance. Amongst numerous other points, you can also forget equal sports opportunities for kids from unemployed households too because currently I spend on average £10 a week (during the season) in subs and travel expenses to keep just one of my kids playing for a local football club. Meanwhile, there's obscene amounts of money concentrated at the top of our NATIONAL game, and they talk about investment in the grassroots? Do me a favour! It's a haves v have nots society and the gap is growing, and that can only spell trouble.

But carry on IDS, I'm sure you mean well

So if you were to find yourself out of work and in need of state help, which would be a perfectly reasonable expectation, would you expect the taxpayer to continue to fund your childs sporting expenses of £10 per week? And, how many children do you have?

 

[1066familyman]

So if you were to find yourself out of work and in need of state help, which would be a perfectly reasonable expectation, would you expect the taxpayer to continue to fund your childs sporting expenses of £10 per week? And, how many children do you have?

No I wouldn't, the £10 a week would be one of the first things to go, naturally, but that's not my point. I'm making a wider point about equal sporting opportunity for all, regardless of income...remember that Olympic Legacy

How many kids I have is both my business and not relevant to the points I'm making here.

See e77's post above for the point I'm basically trying to make.

If only working people in this country could see who the real enemy is and stop bitching so much about benefit 'scroungers' then perhaps we'd all see a fairer society. (That's not to say there aren't any scroungers at all by the way, I'm not that blinkered).

 

[glasfryn]

Portillo yes
Duncan-Smith never

 

[hitony]

Genuine situations / cases I don't have a problem with, sadly from what I am aware of is many people are scamming the system, claiming and working, claiming falsly etc etc.

I can't for the life of me work out why people working can / should be worse off than people not working. For far to long some people have scammed the system and have made it very difficult for the genuine ones, quite simply the scammers have to be forced to stop somehow.

 

[User removed 4]

Do not be taken in by Duncan Smith, he is one of the biggest right wing hypocrites in this nasty coalition


"That he "earned his own money" is fairly questionable. He went to Sandhurst (father was a decorated Group Captain in WWII), joined the Scots Guards (rising dizzyingly from second lieutenant to captain in six years), claimed the dole (!) for some months on leaving the army, worked at GEC-Marconi to sell armaments and Jane's Information Group to sell armaments-related media, then got elected to Parliament in 1992. His "business" career lasted 11 years, since when he has been paid by the state several times the national average salary as an MP. Which he doesn't really need anyway, as his wife's daddy has an ancestral estate which he lives on. And he still saw fit to pay said heiress wife a taxpayer-funded £15,000 salary as his "secretary" for a while in 2001, which beats duck houses. Along the way he has claimed child benefit for each of his four privately-educated children and confessed to two separate instances of lying about his non-existent academic record. David Bennett, a man interviewed before Smith on the Today programme this morning and whom he blithely disregarded, has worked for low wages since he was 17 and doesn't want to have to claim housing benefit. I think he said he is a carer now. A small proportion of benefits claimants may be "scroungers", most aren't; either way we don't pay low-achieving government ministers 134K a year to exercise their unearned sense of moral superiority."

second lieutenant to captain in six years is fairly standard , what rank do you think he should have got to ?

 

[1066familyman]

Genuine situations / cases I don't have a problem with, sadly from what I am aware of is many people are scamming the system, claiming and working, claiming falsly etc etc.

I can't for the life of me work out why people working can / should be worse off than people not working. For far to long some people have scammed the system and have made it very difficult for the genuine ones, quite simply the scammers have to be forced to stop somehow.

Have you any idea how much the figure is for unclaimed benefit in this country? It's not tiny that's for sure. Here's figures reported on last year: BBC News - Billions in benefits go unclaimed, DWP figures show

Ever wondered why this is so rarely reported yet there's huge media coverage given to the so called "scammers" & 'scroungers'?

Again, I don't deny there are problems with scroungers/scammers, but to concentrate so heavily on them whilst ignoring the real problem is a bit like using all your water to put out the bonfire in your garden whilst your house burns down. Both foolish and disgraceful. Innocent people get hurt as a result.

 

[HOFNSKIN]

An inmate in one of Her Majestys Prisons would be appropiate in reply to BUSHY

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Genuine situations / cases I don't have a problem with, sadly from what I am aware of is many people are scamming the system, claiming and working, claiming falsly etc etc.

I can't for the life of me work out why people working can / should be worse off than people not working. For far to long some people have scammed the system and have made it very difficult for the genuine ones, quite simply the scammers have to be forced to stop somehow.

They don't need to scam the system, the system is paying out to people who don't need it at cost to people that do as well as people who are not in a position to claim.

There are no winners here even the claimants who do well at first eventually end up living miserable lives when they hit the part of the system when the free money dries up. We need a new party strong enough to get rid of the current welfare mess, revalue the benefit of working in real jobs and careers that promote family life as well as parenting and elderly care and create a new welfare system based on needs of an individual not the rights of many.

 

[HOFNSKIN]

Make multinational companies pay their fair share of the running costs of this unfair system, ie pay corporation tax in any country where profits are made, not redirect them to a tax haven.

 

[hitony]

Have you any idea how much the figure is for unclaimed benefit in this country? It's not tiny that's for sure. Here's figures reported on last year: BBC News - Billions in benefits go unclaimed, DWP figures show

Ever wondered why this is so rarely reported yet there's huge media coverage given to the so called "scammers" & 'scroungers'?

Again, I don't deny there are problems with scroungers/scammers, but to concentrate so heavily on them whilst ignoring the real problem is a bit like using all your water to put out the bonfire in your garden whilst your house burns down. Both foolish and disgraceful. Innocent people get hurt as a result.

Errm exactly what is the real problem here?? so things are put in place for people who qualify to claim differant types of benefits, so some of these people who qualify dont claim the appropriate benefits (am I right so far??) so who's responsibility exactly is it to ensure all the CORRECT people who DO QUALIFY for these benefits claim it?

 

[hitony]

They don't need to scam the system, the system is paying out to people who don't need it at cost to people that do as well as people who are not in a position to claim.

There are no winners here even the claimants who do well at first eventually end up living miserable lives when they hit the part of the system when the free money dries up. We need a new party strong enough to get rid of the current welfare mess, revalue the benefit of working in real jobs and careers that promote family life as well as parenting and elderly care and create a new welfare system based on needs of an individual not the rights of many.

So who would that be in your opinion?

 

[1066familyman]

Errm exactly what is the real problem here?? so things are put in place for people who qualify to claim differant types of benefits, so some of these people who qualify dont claim the appropriate benefits (am I right so far??) so who's responsibility exactly is it to ensure all the CORRECT people who DO QUALIFY for these benefits claim it?

Apologies if I've given you the impression that people not claiming what they're entitled to is the real problem. That's not what I meant. I merely used that as a counter argument to all the media led hysteria about all the benefits we supposedly pay out to cheats/scroungers.

See my earlier posts and the points made by others here about what I mean about the real problems - namely, huge housing benefit costs because of a lack of social housing and a dysfunctional housing market, and lack of a living wage.

 

[hitony]

Apologies if I've given you the impression that people not claiming what they're entitled to is the real problem. That's not what I meant. I merely used that as a counter argument to all the media led hysteria about all the benefits we supposedly pay out to cheats/scroungers.

See my earlier posts and the points made by others here about what I mean about the real problems - namely, huge housing benefit costs because of a lack of social housing and a dysfunctional housing market, and lack of a living wage.

No need to apologise at all, but I did base my reply purely on the one post of yours I quoted