James Oliver Deckard
Iain Duncan Smith is a despicable little cockroach who has sucked at the public teat for most of his adult life as well as being a useless fucker who couldn’t advance further than Lt in SIX FUCKING YEARS as an army bag-carrier. (Compare that for a moment wit the late great Enoch Powell who in a shorter period advanced from Private to full Brigadier!) Powell was a classical scholar (which later led to his undoing after he quoted some Latin which was misquoted in the press) Professor of Greek by the age of 25. He taught himself Welsh modern Greek, and Portuguese. The most IDS could manage is lying on his CV and Who’s Who entry and make up a University he never attended and some courses which amounted to a few days and NO QUALIFICATIONS.
I make no secret of my scorn of this Quisling Government’s so-called ‘austerity’ package – which mostly consists of consistently pissing money up the wall, and ruining the economy with Green Wankism.
That being said one has to be a very low individual indeed to pick on cripples and spastics – Bernard Manning didn’t do that; that’s left to modern Leftist vermin such as Frankie Boil-on-the-face-of-humanity.
Of all the cuts that Lord Gabb writes about in his classic book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cultural-Revolution-Cu…/…/095410322X – and they are swingeing indeed , he leaves the disabled firmly alone, and indeed large amounts of the welfare state.
Perhaps a year spent in a wheelchair some years ago has left me softer than most on the disabled? (and I was lucky enough to be well provided for). Perhaps the fact that Iain Duncan Smith has led a life of sweet luxury and rent-free living as well as generous compensation from the State has left him totally out of touch. Let’s not forget he was the ‘Minister’ responsible for shutting down Remploy.
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I think you’ve gone a bit easy on him, frankly. But in general I agree.
Comment promoted to front page.
I am promoting this to a main posting
I don’t like this post. Not because of the language – I take the view that foul language can be used to convey feeling, and the poster clearly has strong feelings which he is rightly allowed to express here. I object because it is simply an attack on an individual and amounts to nothing more than self-righteous moralising.
This is supposed to be an intelligent blog. Britain is not a mob rule society, where we personalise everything. Personalities are relevant, but anybody who looks into Iain Duncan Smith’s work more deeply will see that there is a serious and considered basis to the government’s agenda. I don’t necessarily like all of it, and I don’t want to be seen as somebody who is defending it, but missives like the one above are best left to tabloids and social media platforms.
I understand that work and benefits for the disabled is a very sensitive and emotive subject, but moralising doesn’t help us understand anything and creates metaphorical obstacles for those of us who might be interested in having a serious discussion and debate on the topic.
Smith is a moralist, so your comment is rather ironic. As to attacking an individual, that is fine when the individual concerned has coercive power over millions of people, especially when he is such an obvious twunt as Iain Duncan Smith.
As to the government’s “agenda”, there was a revealing article from William Hague yesterday about how the real job of a Chancellor is to keep the markets calm; Hague openly declares that he at least (and one may presume this is a general view) don’t believe that the economic measures they take actually have specific effects, but rather that it’s all just about sending signals to the people who buy government bonds. Keynes’s belief in “confidence” and “animal spirits” writ very large indeed.
Which is terrifying to contemplate, when you think about it.
But when I criticise moralising, I am not objecting to anybody having a moral agenda. There is a difference between the two things. Moral agendas are fine, in my view, where they are supportable and substantial, but the original post here is just bare moralising, based on a perception that politics is a ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ enterprise, like a cowboy film. We may as well turn this into a Pantomime, with one of us shouting “Oh yes he is!”.
Anyway, are we sure that Mr Duncan Smith is even a moralist? What about the theory of dependency culture? That is not strictly about morals. From one angle, it’s about stopping people wasting their lives, and has important social, economic and ethical aspects to it. To object to government-induced dependency, in which people waste their lives is not moralising, it is just sound thinking, even compassionate, and certainly strongly ethical. And that is the case even if the relevant Cabinet minister happens to be an unpleasant person. Even unpleasant people can be right.
I don’t like Conservatives generally – an unfortunate, reactionary prejudice I have had since my youth – but I can see that just because I might dislike an individual or their politics, it doesn’t follow that I should wholly reject their policies, actions, ideas, etc.
As I’ve said before, in my appraisal[1] is a very recognisable moralist in the Victorian tradition. What astonishes me is that people think he’s some kind of original thinker, when his moral position (and proposed solutions- the Workhouse, remember was intended to make unemployment so grim people would avoid it. And yet they still ended up there) is a constant for two hundred years or more.
Broadly, there are two strands of moralist mithering about the Undeserving Poor/Lumpenproletariat/Residuum/Etc. One wing think they can solve it by giving them stuff. The other wing think they can solve it by harshness.
None of this is the least bit new. What it is is an identifiable long term, simplistic moralist position.
I’ve beginning to think that the Undeserving Poor are like oral sex. Every generation thinks they’ve discovered them.
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[1] Assume everything I say is qualified by this caveat.
But the basis of the Conservative policy isn’t just moral, however let’s just assume it is, why is a “simplistic moral position” wrong or objectionable anyway? What is really your point here?
We could all wax lyrical one way or the other about deserving and undeserving cases, but isn’t that just a distraction? Even if both sides are reflecting a long-standing interventionist moral agenda, is that necessarily wrong?
Where I object to morally-infused debate is when it is just a pretence and is of no substance – as is the case with the criticisms of Mr Duncan Smith on here – but asking people to work and pay their way is not pretentiousness. Yes, the message may come from a pretentious source: a politician who, as far as anybody can tell, has never done a day’s work in his life, once lied on his CV and had an undistinguished career in the British Army. OK, so what?
My attitude to that is: ‘Good for him’. If he is lucky enough, or clever enough, or whatever, to be in the position to dish it out, that’s his good fortune. The pretentiousness (or hypocrisy) of the messenger doesn’t or shouldn’t erode the truthfulness of the message.
I already explained this in my first comment. There are two errors. The first is the (moralist) assumption that the Residuum stereotype fits a whole class of unemployed people, the second is that these people are the cause of economic problems when in fact they are a symptom of gross error by government.
The naive, moralist assumption is that if somebody has no job, it’s because they have not made the effort to get one and are actively avoiding working. This ignores the reality which I have already explained which is that the economy has a considerable “gap” into which people who are “fit to work” but whom nobody actually wants to employ fall. A fact which is simply ignored by the simplistic assumption that unemployment is due to the person’s moral inadequacy, and thus they can be forced into work.
You keep asking these rhetorical questions about “is this so wrong?” type stuff, and I’m describing specific economic circumstances. The fact that somebody is capable of doing some kind of work is not the same thing as them being sufficiently attractive to somebody else that they will hire them, or engage them if they try being self-employed.
The other point is that you are confusing success in a meritocracy with the type of success IDS has, which is just down to him having smarmed his way up the party system. That’s what us libertarians object to; the man is a creature not of productive merit, but of the unproductive State.
But I have read your posts and I am responding to your points. I think the assumptions are yours, Ian, partly in that you are trying to template into this discussion the notion that whole swathes of people are being prejudicially classified. You are doing this because you have cornered yourself into a kind of reverse fit of indignation, in which anybody who has a contrary line of thinking is in on some sort of neo-Puritan conspiracy. I don’t understand why this is suddenly about the Tories being uncaring villains or aloof Puritan moralists. It’s starting to sound like the 1990s all over again, and I think it’s just weak-minded blameology and reflects the way in which as a society we have lost some of our moral bearings. This is not me being high and mighty or a government lackey. I have no claim to any moral high ground, and I dislike all governments, but asking people to work for a living (which is what this boils down to), isn’t prejudicing them, and I don’t see how talk of Residuum stereotypes comes into it.
This is pretty simple and any difference between us is down to perspective. My perspective is not meant to come across as harsh, even if it is. I understand the problems people have. I have (and have had) the same problems myself, in spades, and I have been lazy, feckless and immoral at times, so I am not being high and mighty. But if you’re out of work, isn’t it your responsibility to find work and earn a living? Why, suddenly, is it the responsibility of the state to pay you benefits while you are out of work, instead of paying you benefits until you find work – the difference is subtle, but important, because it reflects two different philosophies and different priorities of living.
Unemployment benefits are for people to claim until they find work, not to be paid while you are out of work. Anybody who is capable of working must work or find some other way to support themselves. It is not for people to live on. In that respect, and to that extent (and putting aside the debate over the execution of these policies), the core Tory ethics on welfare are absolutely right. I don’t like the Tories, I lean to the left on economic matters personally, but I must accept that they are right. Otherwise, I would be advocating keeping people as wards of the state just because it’s emotionally popular with weak-minded people who just treat politics like a Pantomime. That’s no position for any rational or intelligent person to hold.
Your point about specific economic circumstances and whether a particular individual can find work is separate and there’s probably nothing either of us can usefully say about it, but I have addressed some of it in the other thread. Somebody who has been out of work for a long time, or has a criminal record, or some other disadvantage, can still find a job if they try and also has the option of self-employment, if they want to try. I don’t accept that people can never find work. I know this is not a popular or nice observation, but in reality there are always options and there is always going to be a small group of people who don’t want to work or don’t want to take on jobs that they feel are humiliating or beneath them. Personally I sympathise with such people, especially given the overarching circumstances, and I would just leave those people alone and let them claim minimal benefits to live on – I’m not as harsh as the Tories – but I think the underlying voluntarism here has to be acknowledged. That’s the basic difference between us – I simply don’t accept your position that some amorphous ‘elite’ can be blamed to the extent that individual responsibility is abrogated.
Well, we know each others’ points of view now and I think we’re going around in circles.
It’s all very well deciding for yourself not to accept something, like “I don’t accept that people can never find work”. You see, that absolves you of having to address the actual issue that I am addressing, so we’re not going to get any further are we?
I will remind you thus of one basic bit of economics. If a person’s labour is only worth, at best, £5 per hour, and the minimum wage is £7 per hour, they are barred from any employment. This is just one factor, but an important one. And no amount of not accepting it is going to change it.
Ian, can people find work if they want to or not? The answer to that has to be ‘Yes’. I know it’s not a nice or popular observation, but we need to be honest and adult about this. Generally, somebody who can’t find work are either doing something wrong or they don’t really want to work or they don’t want a particular job for some reason (and in fairness, it could be a valid reason). You could easily paint me as uncaring here, but I’m just being honest about this.
If somebody tries hard enough, they will almost-always find work eventually – it might take days, weeks or months, but as long as they are trying, benefits should be available and, in my view, financial assistance should be given, including travel expenses and course fees, etc.. In fact, the system I have in mind would be quite generous and forgiving, on the basis that people are genuine, but the point here is that the welfare state has moved beyond this rational and sensible basis to become a ‘custody state’, in which large numbers of people – for whatever reason (and I accept it won’t always be their fault) – are living off benefits, instead of claiming benefits while job-hunting. The system has to be rolled-back to its original intent. That’s why I support the Tory ethic in this regard (whatever the merits or otherwise of the way the policies are being executed), as I recognise it resembles the original social-democratic ethic in the Beveridge Report.
I have run businesses myself and I understand the impact a minimum wage increase can have. My guess is that at £7.00 per hour, I might have had to cut somebody’s hours, but if you want to find work, you (normally) will. The idea that there is some kind of invisible, abstract barrier against job-seeking is a sympathetic fiction conjured up by populist charlatans who want to paint a hardened system as uncaring. It does a disservice to people who might otherwise move heaven and earth to find work and change their lives for the better. I have been unemployed in my youth and I went out every day to look for work and I found it. Yes, if I confine myself to a given geographic area or to a certain type of employment, then I might struggle, and I sympathise with people who want a particular type of job or career and can’t find it. I’m also not disagreeing with you about macro-economic circumstances and the micro-impact of a minimum wage increase, but I think you’re wrong to exclude the factor of human will.
Tom, I just explained why that isn’t true. It’s very simple economics.
Just repeating that you don’t accept that some people can’t get work is like insisting that somebody who can’t find a hotel room in a fully booked city just hasn’t tried hard enough.
I do have experience with this, volunteering with people with health conditions jobseeking. They want jobs. You get them a great CV, do the interview training, they apply and apply, and nobody hires them. But okay, this is anecdata, so maybe we’re doing something wrong as well.
So go back to the economics. Somebody worth £5 per hour can’t get hired for £6 per hour. Even somebody worth £6 per hour can’t get hired if there are other people worth £7 per hour. This is just fact.
But I suspect that we are not going to make any progress in this debate, as I said.
Since reading your comment I looked into Smith’s “work” more deeply. “Despicable little cockroach” is still apt. Let’s attack individuals such as Smith mercilessly, given that their whole careers are just one long sustained attack on society.
[quote]”Just repeating that you don’t accept that some people can’t get work is like insisting that somebody who can’t find a hotel room in a fully booked city just hasn’t tried hard enough”.[unquote]
But it’s not a fully-booked hotel room. The analogy doesn’t quite fit. [As a rule, personally I steer away from this type of induction for that reason]. The unemployed person can, if he chooses, go to a different city. His options are not dependent on one “fully-booked” location. Of course, I accept that sometimes an individual will have valid reasons to look in only one location, but it doesn’t always follow that they should do that, and even if they should, that doesn’t disqualify my argument, which is that there are jobs and work available for people with the will.
[quote]”So go back to the economics. Somebody worth £5 per hour can’t get hired for £6 per hour. Even somebody worth £6 per hour can’t get hired if there are other people worth £7 per hour. This is just fact”.[unquote].
It’s a hypothesis, not a fact, and your hypothesis doesn’t prove that people can’t find work if they have the will and motivation to do so. If your hypothesis were fact, then that would mean that people would not be able to find work just because of an increase in the minimum wage, but we know that is not true. There are other factors to consider. If the statutory minimum is increased, that means the labour market value of those employees also increases by legislative fiat. The employer then has to decide whether to engage (or continue to engage) those employees are that rate and under whatever conditions. He can’t pay them, or anybody else, any less because that is the statutory minimum. I accept this will mean contraction for some businesses and some employees will lose hours and in some cases might have to be made redundant, but they have the option of finding other work or re-training, if they are willing to do this. I know it’s not a nice situation, I’ve been there myself, but there are few, if any, obstacles in the way of people who are willing and motivated. I feel your attitude to it appeals more to the person who wants to give up and blame somebody else.
Also, I think a fundamental point should be addressed here, which is that I am not suggesting we are in a full employment economy. The point in debate is not whether everybody can be employed all at once, nor am I asserting that everybody who wants a job will find one. I wish that were so, and that would certainly be my policy position if I had a say in things, but what I am saying in relation to how things really are is that everybody who wants to receive benefits should be looking for work and only receive benefits on that understanding, and anybody who tries to find work will eventually find it. The difference between ‘everybody’ and ‘anybody’ is that some people will try – they will accept menial jobs or lower-level jobs as a start, be willing to move location, be conscientious at job-hunting, and so on.
I don’t find IDS to be a sympathetic character, and I think he is part of a nasty government, but I have a brain and I can think for myself, and while I might not have fancy qualifications, I can think independently. I can see the truth here, and I don’t have to follow fashion. I believe the fundamental difference here is between:
(i). those who are, intentionally or not, supporting a Custody State, which allows people to live off benefits; and,
(ii). those, like me, who believe in a Welfare State, in which benefits are a safety net and a catalyst for those who fall on hard times (which we all will, from time-to-time).
I accept that the transition from a Welfare State to a Custody State was due to what you and I see as mismanagement of the country, and I accept that in order for a Welfare State proper to work, there will have to be some serious and fundamental policy adjustment, which we are unlikely to see from the liberal elite: so to that extent, you have a point. But to ask people to work for a living or find some other private means to support themselves is not moralising. It is a legitimate moral, ethical, social, and economic mission, which every government should pursue unapologetically, whatever the circumstances.
Whether somebody is disabled or able-bodied, fit or unfit, old or young, poor or rich, they should expect that in return for state benefits they must prepare for work and a life of independence and responsibility. Only in exceptional circumstances should this not be the case.
Ian and Tom,
I don’t have any particular axe to grind on IDS as an individual (except, of course, that I hate all politicians).
But I think both of you have made some valid points here and on the other thread.
Politicians, as a general rule, don’t care a damn about us human beings. That is why, as Ian rightly says, over several decades they have “managed” the economy down into an unsustainable mess. I don’t think they were too worried about pushing people down into a culture of dependency; in fact, they may well have thought it a good thing. The dependent, after all, are a significant voting bloc, and one easy to control.
Tom is right when he says that people ought to be trying to earn, no matter what their situation. But Ian is also right that, once the distortion of the market has reached a certain point, there will be some who are unable to offer enough value to get a job. In fact, the worst affected are likely to be young people, who have never yet managed to find decent work. Once they become discouraged, they will be permanently dependent for the rest of their lives, or until the system collapses, whichever comes first. And minimum wage laws, of course, make this situation even worse.
So, there is merit in both your positions.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with having a welfare system – like the friendly societies of 100+ years ago, for example – but everything wrong with welfare being politicized. Ultimately, as always, it’s politics that is the problem.
BTW, about ten years ago I wrote a screed about the welfare state, which may be of interest. I’ll look it out and re-post it.