Is Iain Duncan Smith a Twat?
December 2024 › Forums › General discussion › Is Iain Duncan Smith a Twat?
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April 2, 2013 at 2:11 pm #81967AnonymousInactive
I have been asked to sign a petition by change.org:
"This petition calls for Iain Duncan Smith, the current Work and Pensions Secretary, to prove his claim of being able to live on £7.57 a day, or £53 a week."
The assumption here is that if only twats like Iain Duncan Smith understood how we suffered then they would do something about it. Noooooooo!
It didn't take me long to find out that £57 per week is a lot less than the rich spend on their horses.
http://www.horsemart.co.uk/horse_advice/horse_prices_how_much_does_a_horse_cost_/739 …
It is the market and production for profit that sets the priorities and decides that a horse is worth more than your child. The only way out is to ignore twats like Duncan Smith and organise democratically for common ownership and production to meet human needs (and of course horses needs)
If I sound angry then you are correct, because many people I love are living on this pittance. Do I think Smith is a twat? I certainly do.
April 2, 2013 at 4:25 pm #92774steve colbornParticipantI remember a guy in the 80's, Piers (the original, or one of them, twats) Merchant and the debate we had with him in Newcastle I think, with Clifford Slapper. Clifford slapped this cretin good and proper, made him look the fool he was.I also have people I care for living on this pittance, that would not even keep a Capitalists horse for a day never mind seven. Not only that forced to grovel for this insulting amount, to fellow workers, employed by the jobcentre.I remember a discussion I had with Pat Maratty in the 80's, when there was talk of giving unemployed workers vouchers instead of cash, to keep them. We came to the conclusion, as must have done the then Tory Gov, that they would never, nor could ever, do this, REASON! they would have to justify the pityful amounts given for each individual thing recquired to live. Rather than let unemployed workers, silently and unreportedly do without one thing, to buy another, and get into debt with loansharks to make ends meet.
April 3, 2013 at 12:26 am #92775SocialistPunkParticipant"The grandaddy of them all, though, is Matthew Parris. In 1984, Parris, at the time a freshly elected Tory MP flushed with enthusiasm for the Thatcherdom, agreed to try living for a week in a Newcastle bedsit on £26.80, the supplementary benefit paid to a single unemployed man.For the Benefit of Mr Parris, a World in Action documentary that drew a record 13 million viewers, showed "the comfortable Tory MP for West Derbyshire", as Julian Barnes called him in an Observer review, informing an audience of Tory ladies that unemployment "should be uncomfortable", in order to sharpen the appetites of the jobless for work.Since the government of which he was a member had just cut benefits by 5% and was presiding – as Parris himself wrote – "over an economy in which whole forests of jobs in manufacturing were falling to the monetarist axe", a lot of people wanted to see how he would survive his week. He didn't.The programme showed Parris arriving on Tyneside and signing on. He spent £11 on food, £2.50 on a terrace ticket for a Newcastle United game and 72p on a bus ticket to get there. And, as Barnes observed, "with two days to go he was down to his last 61p, and his plan to save £3 out of his £26.80 had collapsed. On his last evening the gas and electricity ran out and he loitered in a working men's club, unable to afford a drink."Parris, who acknowledges his week-long flirtation with poverty launched his subsequent successful career as a full-time writer and broadcaster, conceded he had not survived as well as he hoped, but refused to admit benefits were too low or that society, economics or politics could be blamed for individuals' problems."http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/shortcuts/2013/apr/02/iain-duncan-smith-mp-living-on-benefits
April 3, 2013 at 12:57 am #92776steve colbornParticipantROFL , SP. Absofuckinglutely. Rich tossers, with rich well off lives to return to, after a week, living OUR lives, pontificating on how easy it would be to live, OUR lives? Fucking pricks.Role on class conscious understanding of, not OUR, position in society but more importantly, THEIRS! Steve.
April 3, 2013 at 9:04 am #92777AnonymousInactiveYes, I remember Parris. He later said that the unemployed should be taken off the 'happy' drug which doctors were handing out 'willy nilly' and perhaps they would then do something about their condition. Is that all we can do? Ask a rich twat to experience our life for a week!! It's like being trapped in a hamster wheel, getting nowhere. AAAARRRRRRGGGGGG!!! Will the workers ever learn?
April 3, 2013 at 12:03 pm #92778SocialistPunkParticipantMarx said "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."He forgot, "Then ad infinitum as the social Darwinism brigade." Those things are so blatantly inhuman in their thinking and spouting.But the ultimate tragedy is that, the working class who hold the real power, let the parasites get away with it every time. How many times can ya fall for a suckerpunch before ya twig on?
April 4, 2013 at 6:48 am #92779ALBKeymasterHe's also a practising Roman Catholic and is engaged in bashing the poor just as much to win votes as to save money. The new pope has said he wants to help the poor. So will he excommunicate him? Of course not. The both of them are hypocrites. Not of course that it would make any difference either way. Even if Duncan Smith was sincere or a saint he would still have to do what the economic laws of capitalism require him to do as capitalism can't be made to work in the interests of the majority. Still, it's all grist to our mill.
April 4, 2013 at 11:40 am #92780kohara66ParticipantI saw and circulated the petition amongst friends and family to sign. Whilst aware ultimately make no fundamental change at least the more who sign it at least shows that not all members of the working class are falling for the demonising of certain sections of our class.
April 4, 2013 at 4:43 pm #92781SocialistPunkParticipantHi kohara66Would you be able to post a link. I have had a look and found what I thought was the petition, but I was hesitant in giving my email details. If you provide a link and it is the same as I have found I will sign it.Ultimately it will not change anything, but it would be good to think it could damage the pleasant chaps career if enough people sign it. Always a pleasure to see politicians fall on their own sword.
April 4, 2013 at 4:51 pm #92782ALBKeymasterhttps://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-weekOver 423,000 have signed so far.
April 4, 2013 at 7:24 pm #92783SocialistPunkParticipantALB wrote:He's also a practising Roman Catholic and is engaged in bashing the poor just as much to win votes as to save money. The new pope has said he wants to help the poor. So will he excommunicate him? Of course not. The both of them are hypocrites. Not of course that it would make any difference either way. Even if Duncan Smith was sincere or a saint he would still have to do what the economic laws of capitalism require him to do as capitalism can't be made to work in the interests of the majority. Still, it's all grist to our mill.Thanks for the link Adam.Maybe we are being too hard on that fine upstanding christian. Maybe old Smithy boy is helping to fulfill core christian tenets."Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." and "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."As free thinkers we know that contradiction equates to, "If you are poor, shut up, stop moaning about it and you will get your reward when you are dead".Ian Duncan Smith, the righteous christian, merely doing The Lords work. Saving us lowly workers from our inability to resist the temptations of Mammon.Gawd bless 'im, I say.
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