“The Work and Pensions Secretary was today accused of misrepresenting government statistics in order to claim his cap on benefits was driving people to find work.” ITV News 13th April.
Ian Duncan Smith has claimed that his policy on capping benefits is working because the number of people expected to suffer benefit cuts was originally 56,000 but has seemingly fallen to 40,000. However this figure has been contested by Jonathan Portes, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and a former chief economist at the DWP, who said "there was no evidence at all" that the cap had affected people's behaviour.
According to Ian Duncan Smith the point of capping benefits is to get people back into work; but my query is how can people get back into work when there are no jobs available. I am aware of one graduate with a 1st Class honours degree who is still out of work nearly two years after graduating. Another person has tried for over two years to find paid work and is filling in her time volunteering in a charity shop and undertaking unpaid clerical and reception work. There are many similar examples. Of course, there are some who are just plain bone idle but the greater majority who find themselves unemployed want to get back into work as soon as they can.
I've always been a conservative, which has usually (but not always) coincided with the Conservatives. I voted for the present Conservatives because I thought they would get us out of the mess we are in by neither penalising the wealthy for being wealthy, nor abusing the poor for being poor. I'm quite ashamed of myself now.
ReplyDeleteAs it turns out, there's a chance that I won't live long enough to see the next General Election, but if I'm spared I think I will write "none of the above" on the ballot. For the first time in my 64 years on this planet, I truly despair of my country's government. I ask you: would a despotic, absolutist monarchy actually be any worse?
Having been around for 12 years longer than you, Stephen, I too am in a state of some despair.
DeleteIn 1951 I was a member of Dagenham Young Conservatives and at that year's general election worked for the Conservative candidate (Norman St John Stevas) where the sitting Labour MP (John Parker) was defending a majority of 32,000. Until recently I have remained a party activist - canvassing, delivery, branch and constituency officer, Redbridge councillor (24 years), group Deputy Leader, borough Deputy Mayor.
At every election, local and national, since 1957 I voted with party loyalty until the local elections of 2010. In that year I did not vote for one candidate of the three because I disliked his attitudes. At the London Assembly election last year I did not vote for the Conservative candidate whom I have come to regard as a complacent parasite. I shall not vote Conservative again until Cameron hands back to a true Tory the party that he has stolen from us.