I am prepared to believe that even Iain Duncan Smith has been genuinely sickened by the attack on the disabled in the budget to give yet more tax breaks for higher earners. He is very typical of the officer class of the senior British regiments and while he is instinctively right wing, there is a linit to the amount of suffering he could see unleashed on the poor, because he does have some sense of basic decency. I grant you things had to go very far before it finally took effect, but it has. It should also be remembered that he is not an old Etonian but a real Scot, born in Edinburgh, and state educated.
When Osborne and Cameron are pushing the attacks on the most in need, and the tax benefits to the rich, to the point that Iain Duncan Smith can no longer stand it, you really have to wonder what has happened to our country. What you have to wonder in particular is why we have a corporate media, including the BBC, so far to the right that it is even to the right of Iain Duncan Smith in the way that it has presented and commented on the Budget.
That is why the corporate media is trying to obscure the issue by claiming Duncan Smith’s resignation is secretly about Europe. This is nonsense because Duncan Smith could have gained far more publicity for anti-European views by openly resigning over them and setting them out. Duncan Smith would have gained infinitely more popularity in the Connservative Party for resigning over Europe than for trying to protect disable people. And certainly there would have been infinitely more support in the corporate media for resigning over Europe; the corporate media cares about the disabled not a fig.
I believe Iain Duncan Smith; and his resignation shows how terribly, terribly far to the right the Tories have moved this government.
So Stephen Crabb, is the new Work and Pensions secretary. Crabb, was the Secretary of State for Wales, is state educated and at one time worked as a Labourer.
Worringly though Crabb said on welfare:
“One of the arguments I’ve been trying to make is that we can’t go soft on welfare reform in a place like Wales — it’s precisely the place that needs it.”
Sounds as though Mr Crabb, is a yes man.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/stephen-crabb-the-welsh-mp-and-new-work-and-pensions-secretary-who-once-worked-as-a-labourer-a6940991.html
I think Craig is massively wide of the mark with his views regarding Smith. For years Smith has waged a campaign of terror against the most vulnerable members of society and has done so in the most remorseless manner. I believe he is simply trying to distance himself from this loathsome government because even that portion of the public that is generally docile and slow-witted is beginning to appreciate what an obscene entity it really is.
I’m baffled by this comment……
“It should also be remembered that he is not an old Etonian but a real Scot, born in Edinburgh, and state educated.”
Does Craig seriously believe that only posh folk are capable of being horrible human beings?
IDS doesn’t care a damn for the poor or disabled – his record shows that beyond any doubt. He’s positioning himself for any potential leadership contest after the EU referendum. This is a calculated move to weaken Cameron and Osborne in any leadership contest.
Page 2, so perhaps I’m allowed to comment on the new look of this blog: I feel like I’m really drunk at a French wedding; but hey, there’s nothing wrong with that.
(although I could add that the overall whiteness will be quite hard on tired eyes late at night)
As for Iain Duncan Smith, the Capybara springs to mind.
Funny this: I’m clicking the correct button to leave a reply to RobG. But, my hreader on the screen keeps reading ” Leave a Reply to Republicofscotland “.
Let’s see where this ends up….
Do you have javascript off?
Darth, javascript? It’s all Greek to me, I’m afraid. But, if it helps I use a MacBook. Thanks for follow up anyway.
If you don’t know what Javascript is you probably haven’t turned it off 🙂 Some people routinely turn off scripting (noscript addon for example) as an extra security precaution and the site has to use different methods of doing things for them. That’s why I was wondering.
Right, so the ‘header’ was misleading. One for the Admin’s snag list.
Anyway, RobG, I would be surprised if any French couple aware of the effects of alcohol on you, would invite you to their wedding! 🙂
Alcyone, weddings in rural France usually involve drinking booze from 8am until 8am the next morning; although it’s not binge drinking, just a slow drip-drip-drip. At lunchtime on the big day they all get in their cars, by this time quite para, and drive around honking their horns. The official wedding ceremony takes place at the Marie (town hall). The church ceremony afterwards is optional, and I would say that about 50% of couples opt for it. France has also introduced what can be described as ‘civil partnerships’; a kind of try-out for marriage without the full hassle of it.
Weddings always involve lots of toasts to the happy couple, and lots of politics. My local mayor is a communist (French Communist Party) and is always the life and soul at weddings.
It’s a different world, ay.
So RobG, in other words, this place does NOT resemble a French wedding, except in your eyes. Do you use alcohol for eyedrops?
Anyway, I would like to consider joining Habby for a long weekend, too late for Easter now, at your idyllic gite. Are you going to give us indicative costs and perhaps a few snapshots?
Alcyone, I’m not sure what monsieur the communist mayor would make of you and Habba!
Due to all this terrorist nonsense (which is all false flag) tourism in France has plummeted (France was the top tourist destination in the world). Aside from gite owners like myself, big players like Eurostar have reported a 50% drop in business since the Paris ‘terror attacks’.
I wonder if it’s possible to sue the criminal/psycho loons in the security services for loss of business?
Right, RoS, but the Falklands was a particularly bad colonial affair. as it got the loony Americans involved in doing the same in the Americas, and then trying to get rid of the USSR and Russia. Now they have added China.
There is going to be some big surprise which gets rid of most of us.
The world is a powder keg those days which only needs a spark.
The lack of tactical sense being displayed is revealing, I think.
The man who has, with apparent enjoyment, been implementing the cuts finally resigns, saying the government has gone too far in targeting the needy.
In what was is it tactically helpful in opposing the cuts to say “we don’t believe you, obviously you are resigning over something else?” It is a great deal more sensible to say that what the government is doing is so awful, even the strategy’s implementer has resigned. I think an emotional need to voice their hatred of Duncan Smith is clouding people’s judgement.
Being tactically helpful and identifying the truth are not necessarily the same thing. The drive to gain tactical advantage can also cloud judgment.
CM,
Although loath to use The Guardian as a valuable reference source, the fact remains that even Vince Cable has come to the defence of IDS with this quote: “Cable says that, time after time as Osborne imposed welfare cuts, Duncan Smith was “dragged kicking and screaming the whole way through: and you had these pubescent Treasury officials saying, a billion from this and a billion from that, without any sense at all of what it meant in human terms”.
As I myself have stated, although IDS is a nasty piece of work, both Cameron and Osborne are worse, and that’s before we consider the Treasury, which is staffed on the whole by neoliberal fruitcakes unable to see beyond their failed economic prescriptions. Austerity being ideologically driven, rather than based on known realities, as anyone who follows the heterodox school of economics knows all too well.
I assume that you do not mean what you appear to be saying in this comment.
It seems that you think people should accept and believe, or at least say that they believe, Iain Duncan Smith’s statements because it is useful to do so in attacking the UK Government’s policies. I have no desire to believe that something is true because it is useful to do so. I wish to believe that something is true because it is true, or false because it is false. It’s perfectly possible that I am wrong not to believe what Duncan Smith says, but his record as a liar is so extensive, that if he told me that it was dark outside I would have to check for myself.
I also accept as perfectly sensible the suggestion that perhaps I am reluctant to believe Duncan Smith because I don’t like him. It is certainly difficult to loosen and relinquish an emotional commitment to believing someone is a monster. On the other hand, with equal justice, one could say that an emotional commitment to attacking the Government could increase a person’s eagerness to take what Duncan Smith says at face value. Your posting actually suggests as much. However, even you say that he has been implementing cuts with “apparent enjoyment”. Whence comes the sudden volte face, then? Perhaps it is as petty as George Osborne getting up his nose once too often.
Sorry,
Can’t see IDS having any feelings of guilt towards the unfortunate. I have always seen him as a hard-line apparatnik and his actions support this, being truly a “small nation” Tory.
This government are nothing but a bunch of fascists…controlled by the Rothschilds et al. The Zionists in the UK and around the world control the media, the entertainment business, the banks…etc..etc…Ian Duncan Smith finally saw the light…a bit to late though. Still, he obviously has a conscience, which is sorely lacking in the Tory Party.
A previous squatter on this blog seems to be sucking on sour grapes, when she pronounces:
“Do you like his new layout? There don’t seem to be many plaudits for it. At least the input of the Zionist trolls will be restricted as e-mail addresses are now a requirement. There is a facility for direct reply rather than having to wade through a long stream of their repetitive bilge.”
That remark about email addresses, now being required (when it has been required all along forever), really does sift out the geriatrics from those of us ageing well!
http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/thread/1458380517.html
There is something in the old adage: Everything that happens, happens for the best. Cameron and Osborne may not agree today, but their party is set to be torn apart rather sooner and more readily than Corbyn’s Labour party.
Post a Response
I have just realised that the white background here is rather eco-friendly. Just tone down the brightness of your screen.
Though, I still prefer the green, or whatever it was, earlier.
The Chancer of the Exchequer’s budget on relief for the oil industry also appears misleading. Osborne said he’d abandon Petroleum Revenue Tax (PRT) To help the oil industry.
However what Osborne didn’t reveal, was that hardly any oilfields pay PRT to begin with, nor do new oilfield pay PRT.
Osborne along with Boris Johnson, are touted as the next PM of Britian, Osborne, whose had countless budgets, and has borrowed probably more than any chancellor in British history. It would appear that any finanicial misgivings are to be recouped from anywhere but the well to do and the privileged City of London’s square mile.
“What the Saudi leaks tell us: An interview with Julian Assange” – See more at: http://newint.org/features/2016/03/01/what-the-saudi-leaks-tell-us/#sthash.By4NXyEl.dpuf
“‘There is some interesting traffic in relation to deals done for UN votes that reveals that the UK did a vote-swap with Saudi to get Saudi onto the Human Rights Council. The offer to the UK from Saudi included $100,000 to the section of the FCO [Foreign & Commonwealth Office] that deals with who should be elected to the human rights council. It’s there in the cables, for “the campaigning expense that the FCO will need” to make sure that Saudi is elected to the HR council. “- See more at: http://newint.org/features/2016/03/01/what-the-saudi-leaks-tell-us/#sthash.By4NXyEl.dpuf
New Internationalist, the Oxford publication, not one that is linked much over here. Surprising! My pleasure to do so….
” New Internationalist reports on issues of world poverty and inequality. We focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide in the fight for global justice.”
http://newint.org/about/
http://newint.org/
Just saw Stephen McCartland, Tory MP on the subject of PIPs and IDS’s resignation on Channel 4 news. Spoke well and well worth watching on catch-up.
Darth @19.03
I guess you’re right Darth; anyway I don’t see it being a problem for me.
Now, why can’t I see a reply button on your last remark? Is there a limit?
Yes. 5 Levels including top.
Right, thanks Darth. Good job!
Getting used to the colours. Toning down the brightness certainly helps.
My take, although somebody might have already said this, is that governments are just puppets of bankers and big business. It is the duty of Tory ministers to those who control them to give ordinary poor people more austerity than is reasonably bearable. But if they feel some time in the future they have to rise again, or do not want to be recorded by history as absolute tyrants it is a get out clause. Iain Duncan Smith has done his dirty deed. Now he has gone out like someone who cares. Another will take his place to heap even more austerity (I keep wanting to write shit) on the very poor. We all forget about Smith and his shit and just remember him as the one who resigned over the harsh mistreatment of the disabled. If Thatcher or Blair had done this their reputation in history might not be so bad. It is not about individuals but the end-game.
O/T Can anybody recommend a decent bank?
Try Metro Bank. Good accessible, personal service. Unrelated to the Rothschilds AFAIK. Ha ha
Although, I believe Santander offers 35 interest on balances up to 20,000 plus cash-back on certain card payments, like utilities.
35 interest????????? = 20% !!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t know what I was thinking there…shekels?
3% interest
Phew
John Goss: “Can anyone recommend a decent Bank ?” Notwithstanding an implied, inherent, and ironic insinuation, in that otherwise, ostensibly oxymoronic enquiry, how about the eco-credentials and criteria, of this Nederlander candidate for your further consideration… ? 😉 https://www.triodos.co.uk/en/personal/
Hmmm, t rather looks like Simon Heffer at the Telegraph is agreeing with what I said at 17.55:
“Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation discloses perhaps the worst-kept secret of British politics: that the Tory party is an uneasy coalition, and the Cabinet contains factions whose distaste for each other borders in some respects on deep loathing. Mr Duncan Smith does not deal in flannel: if he says he has resigned over cuts to disability benefits, then that is what he has done. But, in politics as in all great theatrical performances, timing is everything.”
His “does not deal in flannel” remark, also seems to agree with Craig.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/12199009/IDS-has-made-Osbornes-downfall-a-certainty.html
Nice pic of Osbourne in that link too. 🙂
Why do British Chancellors, of late, consistently lack charisma? I’ve known quite a few bean-counters over the years who are actually quite the opposite.
Reminds me of an old ad back in the ’70’s : ” I used to be an accountant until I discovered Smirnoff.” (Is RobG an accountant?)
Peter Oborne fillets George Osborne AND “Lord” Feldman here.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3499784/Peter-Oborne-Profligacy-lies-believe-Osborne-bad-chap.html
Well-deserved, and backed-up, beasting. Worth a read. But I’d take issue with attributing courage to Osborne. He only attacks targets which can’t fight back.
The raw presence of Mrs Thatcher outshaded most of the talent in the Tory party for a generation. If the current PM and chancellor can’t even sway the opinions of their leading henchmen, what chance have they of convincing us of anything? The government has not swung to the right, it has been swung to the right by electoral fraud, pleasing the friends of Israel, and New Labour warmongering.
Just as every fossil fuel fire needs to be fitted with a CO detector, so every political party should be fitted with toxic whip detector, whereby through party loyalty MPs voted for stupid things they don’t agree with, just to stay in their jobs.
This parliament has run out of puff but it’s got to sweat out another 4 years.Please give us some IS terrorists on Turkish visas to hide the stench of decomposition, coming from a load of Thatcher offal/tripe that’s past its sell-by date and is starting to decompose.
I have not said that Iain Duncan Smith is a good man. I have merely said he is not as bad as Cameron and Osborne.
As several others have noted, this assessment of Craig’s is pretty accurate. The comments attributed by Chris Rogers to Vince Cable support it, as do the comments from many journalists (Heffer, Peter Oborne) who have good sources within the Tory hierarchy.
IDS is leading his party up the garden path with his unworkable Universal Credit proposals, thanks to his belief (so common in our politicians) in the snake oil hawked by IT consultants, but he does actually believe in UC, regarding it as his political ‘baby’ for which he hopes to be remembered (more fool him) . However Osborne has succeeded in pushing IDS over the edge in his latest attempt to penny pinch from the benefits bill while in the same budget (like the child of privilege he is ) cutting capital gains tax.
If IDS’s resignation makes the hitherto assumed succession of Osborne less likely, it is highly commendable.
Old Mark,
Nice of you to mention me and also note that the IT omnishambles that is universal credit is what in reality undermined IDS. Indeed, would it not have been better for IDS to just come out and say he believes in a ‘citizens income’, thereby cutting much of the bureaucracy out of our outdated and complex social security system, the administration of which costs a fortune, as does our tax system.
Totally agree. Universal Basic Income is the way to go for the future.
Thanks re banks to Alcyone and Jeremystreetjim. I have been with the Coop from the days when we were all shareholders (in the early eighties) but the Coop seems to be closing down many (mainly Muslim) accounts at a rate of knots. What it is doing to Muslims today it will do to others tomorrow. Leaving it (which I am seriously contemplating) will be my protest against this victimisation. However Triodos deos not yet have current account facilities but it looks a promising alternative.
https://www.triodos.co.uk/en/personal/service/faq/?faqId=131865
As to Metro Bank I have sent them the following message:
“I have been with the Coop Bank for some 35 years from the days when we were all shareholders. I am looking for a bank that will not close down Muslim bank accounts because the account holders are opposed to wrongful imprisonment (Cage) and the military genocide by Israel on Palestinians (Palestine Support Group). Can you guarantee this?
Thank you.”
If I get a response I will let you know.
Seriously Craig? Really? this is all about IDS putting the boot in on Osborne and is also a symptom of the dissection within the vermin over the upcoming referendum on the EU. IDS does not give a flying fuck about the poor and the disadvantaged save where he can opportunistically use them to further his own ambitions.
Sorry Craig but you are terribly wrong in your assessment of IDS.
This murdering bas**** started his resignation letter with the immortal words “I am incredibly proud of the welfare reforms that the government has delivered over the last five years.” These are reforms that IDS in part created and authored and certainly enforced.
Those are welfare reforms that he prosecuted over the unemployed and disabled for years – they still continue today. These include daily routines of quite literally psychologically and emotionally torturing people on JSA in and via Jobcentres. I’m not being hyperbolic in saying that, they are torturing people. He cranked up a sanction regime that puts people in full, feel it in your gut, fear every time they go near a Jobcentre, every time a brown envelope drops through their door. The only tweak he made to policies around sanctions was to extend the period the minimum sanction rate would be applied for. Jobcentre staff pursued, and to this very day still pursue, targets for the number of people that they will sanction. Some of the staff in Jobcentres are quite besides themselves with their new found power. I have with my own eyes seen staff smile while they informed people that they were being put forward for a sanction. Think about it Craig, Jobcentres are very grim places to be in nowadays. Because of these sanctions people are quite literally driven into starvation i.e. the physical torture begins. Think about it, a *MINIMUM* of four weeks (though it can easily be much longer) without money to buy food and heat a home. Many people gave up the fight with them and ended up committing suicide – driven to it by the barbarity of the situation. IDS knows this and yet was perfectly happy to carry on regardless. Further than that he refused to allow DWP statistics on suicide rates to be released.
Think about it Craig. IDS was happily heading up a government department that was (and to this day is) KILLING PEOPLE and he did nothing but pursue even deeper cuts and psychological, emotional and physical torture techniques.
At base an officer and a gentleman with principles? You really are joking Craig. Please tell me you are joking. I can’t believe you wrote that. You overlook far, far too much. Whatever IDS is doing now it has nothing at all to do with developing a conscience over the unemployed and the disabled. The man is pure, unadulterated poison and, if we lived in a just society, would be doing a great deal of time in the bottom cellar of some jail.
Well said.
I agree with you most of the time Craig, but, I’m sorry, Ian Duncan Smith has had more than enough time and exposure to the Westminster corruption. He nailed his colours to his neocon mast! He IDS was himself removed as leader of the Tory party by one man, from the 1922 committee. No sitting MPs just one man! So much for any pretence at a free and Democratic Party. He has had the tools to make a political decision, for some considerable time. I think his resigning might have more to do with th UN investigation than any conscious, morality of humanity. Best wishes
If, like so many people say, this is about Europe, which IDS denies, then I expect him to fall on his sword once the UK voted to remain in Europe, why would he want to serve under the Yoch of Brussels…..
Also looking forward to the UK’s fair share of Syrian refugees finding their way into this country from hard pressed Greece.
If the U.K. government are keen on saving money they should tell the French to stick Hinkley Point C
that will in the short term save tens of billions, in the long term much more.
Building the largest nuclear power plant in the World will suck the life out of the renewable industries.
Get real Boy George or leave the stage.
I think IDS is having a Portillo moment. He recognises that he is never going to be accepted as a first tier upper echalon Tory minister, so he is re-defining himself in a bizarre turncoat/touchy feely attempt to redeem his image away from the rotweiller thug whose job it was to impose unpopular policies.
I don’t believe a word of what he says and I find it extraordinary that the media believes his story. It is not dissimilar to some despot thug who spent years lining up and shooting protesters then having done so attempting to claim he never shot them in the first place. The Portillo comparison is valid. I predict he will shortly be presenting TV programmes about some agreeable form of transport, or perhaps he’ll turn to baking cakes. Anything will do in his effort to distance himself from what he already knew was a hideous act of hitting the vulnerable. He enacted the policies and needs to be accountable for them.
John S – The drive and intention of your post is quite extraordinary and provides a true picture of Job Centre mandate impose by this unfeeling Conservative ‘one nation government’ sensitive to the daily agony of the suffering needy and fortuneless low. I made sense of that low from the hopelessness of a sanctioned friend alone with two young children left to tramp the few miles to a Salvation Army for food having used the three monthly food-bank tickets that provide a gracious table.
IDS is disgusted with Boy George,
I expect he would punch his teeth down his windpipe other than Cameron would call that an ungentlemanly act.
IDS doesn’t care a damn for the poor or disabled – his record shows that beyond any doubt. He’s positioning himself for any potential leadership contest after the EU referendum. This is a calculated move to weaken Cameron and Osborne in any leadership contest.