Iain Duncan Smith: Monster of the Year 2012

Some people just don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.

It seems Iain Duncan Smith, the creature whose Department for Work and Pensions launched an ethnic cleansing programme (in all but name) against the sick and disabled in 2011 and 2012, has now turned his baleful glare on the working poor.

Tax credits – the system devised by the last Labour government to try to relieve poverty for people who work but receive low payment – has created “a sorry story of dependency, wasted taxpayers’ money and fraud”, according to the Immoral Delusional Sadist.

Let’s remember that this is the man who is using recorded fraud of 0.4 per cent, among sickness and disability claimants, to force at least 20 per cent of them off benefits altogether. His understanding of the extent of fraud is, well, flawed.

Let’s also remember that his planned replacement for tax credits – the Universal Credit – is already far over budget and still far from ready, despite pilot projects being scheduled to start in April. Its expected national roll-out in October may be put back to 2014. This man knows how to waste taxpayers’ money with the best of them!

As for tax credits creating dependency – this is the only part of his argument that could possibly be justifiable, and even then it is only because of government laxness regarding pay. If the national minimum wage had risen in line with company bosses’ average pay, it would currently stand at more than £18 per hour – three times its actual current level. That should explain everything you need to know about why low-paid workers may be dependent on tax credits to survive.

Tax credits – and other state top-ups for the working poor, like housing benefit and the soon-to-disappear Council Tax benefit – are only paid in high amounts because they subsidise employers who refuse to pay a living wage. If the private sector paid working people what they are worth, the benefits bill would drop like a stone.

The Insidious Dole Snatcher is currently leading an overhaul of the welfare system that will see a number of benefits replaced by a new universal credit that is designed, he says, “to make work pay at each and every hour”. He keeps saying this. I don’t understand why. Cutting benefits to less than what people are paid at work won’t “make work pay” – it’ll throw more and more people into poverty, debt and destitution.

But this is a creature who is determined to do his worst – actually refusing to be moved from Work and Pensions in David Cameron’s autumn reshuffle in order to continue inflicting his wrath on the defenceless poor.

The latest attack on the unemployed is the Universal Jobmatch computer system. Jobseekers are coerced into signing up (they don’t have to) and into ticking a box which allows Job Centre Plus staff to view their activities and pass their personal details on to possible employers (again, this is not a legal requirement). Advertisers on the site have, so far, included identity thieves and pimps.

Obviously, if you don’t have a computer – and many claimants don’t because, in case you’ve missed it, they’re poor – this system is impossible to use.

That’s not good enough for the Irrational Debt Starter. Under a headline that stated “Log on or stop signing on”, he told Metro: “I’m a job adviser and I’ve got someone who doesn’t want to do this. I will haul them in a lot. Instead of them going in every two weeks, these job advisers can bring them in every day if they want, if they think they are not getting out of bed in the morning.”

If the adviser does not believe the claimant is looking for work, their benefits will be withdrawn, he added.

In other words, not owning a computer is not, in this lunatic’s world, a good enough reason not to use a computerised jobsearch system.

I wasn’t going to do an ‘end-of-year awards’ feature but it is for the above reasons that Mr Smith takes the biscuit – ahead of other heavyweight contenders like Andrew Lansley (ruined the English NHS), George Osborne (expenses cheat, continuing to ruin the national economy), Maria Miller (expenses cheat, threw disabled people out of work by closing Remploy factories), Michael Gove (ruining our education system), Jeremy Hunt (too close to certain media barons) and of course David Cameron (living embodiment of dishonest with an embarrassing combover to boot) – to take the title.

Smith – YOU are Vox Political’s Monster of the Year!

Of course, in Britain we have a long tradition – look at Beowulf and Grendel, or St George and the Dragon – of killing monsters

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22 Comments

  1. Christopher John Ball December 31, 2012 at 12:19 pm - Reply

    Iain Duncan Smith looks and acts like a possessed teddy bear in need of an exorcism. His is a history of political failure and he is desperate for some sort of legacy. He doesn’t care who he hurts to get that legacy.

    • Fiona December 31, 2012 at 2:42 pm - Reply

      Couldn’t agree more!

  2. jaynel62 December 31, 2012 at 12:28 pm - Reply

    Difficult to find a better Candidate

  3. Linda Burnip December 31, 2012 at 1:04 pm - Reply

    it’s really easy to save money on tax credits you just make firms who pay low wages pay a living wage. That way they pay and taxpayers don’t. Same with rents, Housing Benefits only benefit landlords and not tenants so bring back rent controls. Wonder what IDS takes to make him so delusional??

    • Arthur Ranking January 1, 2013 at 5:58 pm - Reply

      and raise the level of pay at which people start to pay income tax, the personal allowance. How can peiople in receipt of tax credits be scrounging when they are getting back what they shouldn’t have paid in the first place?

  4. Catherine December 31, 2012 at 1:04 pm - Reply

    And that’s even without mentioning his teeth-baring, jeering and snarling performance while Ian Lavery MP presented a constituent’s suicide note to Parliament.

    • Jim Paton January 2, 2013 at 8:21 am - Reply

      the man/monsters not got a heart pal.Hope he gets the jail or executed when all this finally ends with crimes against humanity because make no mistake that bastard smith has got blood on his hands.The most hated thing on the planet

  5. Dani de Nada December 31, 2012 at 2:11 pm - Reply

    I am still gobsmacked how ‘refused to move’ did not result in ‘okay, then you’re fired’…. Sad, pathetic Cameron proves it is not just cleggyweggy that lacks a spine!!

    • Mike Sivier December 31, 2012 at 2:40 pm - Reply

      Absolutely. Also, thanks to Dani for spotting an error in this article earlier, which I corrected.

    • Noctilu Centish (@Centish) December 31, 2012 at 5:32 pm - Reply

      Who knows what ‘favour’ Dave owes Smith, and, what for.

  6. andreaurbanfox © December 31, 2012 at 3:56 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Andreaurbanfox © and commented:
    Excellent blog. Well worth a read.
    Iain Duncan Smith: Monster of the Year 2012
    OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

  7. jakdawg December 31, 2012 at 4:20 pm - Reply

    Good choice

  8. fuckthetories December 31, 2012 at 4:21 pm - Reply

    He needs sectioning

  9. David Shaw December 31, 2012 at 4:30 pm - Reply

    IDS, the reincarnation of Torquemada, the head of the spanish inquistion. Has to be true as IDS claims to be christian, is a roman catholic and likes to kill people.

    • Penelope January 1, 2013 at 5:12 pm - Reply

      LOL David…. Torquemada….That’s exactly the person that came to my mind whilst thinking about IDS and his religious convictions – I am surprised that his can sit his nether regions on a church pew without them becoming red hot. I was frankly appalled at the choice seasonal timing (not that any time would be good) that his department decided to release this new attack on people. That spoke volumes about his and his departments MO. A timing strategy I am sure that would have not looked out of place in Germany around the late 30’s early 40’s.

  10. Joanna Terry December 31, 2012 at 4:31 pm - Reply

    IDS is heading for the biggest breakdown known to man, he has displayed a messianic fervour in his mission to force people into abject poverty. It was not so long ago that some right wingers shouted that the poverty in this Country was relative, they have gone strangely silent of late, they have had their wish granted and OK we are not yet skimming the rubbish tips but this is a cold Country. The man is going to be challenged at every turn (my new years wish) on every policy, including what the Hague is considering. Plenty of proof for them there. He will implode and the men in white will have no choice but to straight jacket him. I for one would wish his head in stocks so we can throw all that rotton food at him, he deserves nothing less. My biggest desire though is to see him brought to court for all the pain, misery and death he has personally caused. Maybe now those middle-classes that thought attacking the poor was a good idea will now wake up when their relative poverty prevents them from re-newing the car or taking that holiday they so deserve, or when their childrens school can no longer teach them and the policeman fails to arrive after their house has been ransacked or they have been horribly mugged and find that to get treatment they have to pay as there is no NHS.

    • jakdawg December 31, 2012 at 5:04 pm - Reply

      Amen to that

  11. gisellecody December 31, 2012 at 11:10 pm - Reply

    £18 ph is the going rate for my job (teaching English and basic literacy to refugees) or it would be if weren’t for the jobcentre. The week before my PTLLS course (funded by the college where I’d been working unpaid as work experience) I was sentenced to the Work Programme and forced to leave teaching and do what Maximus wanted : four cleaning jobs a day, all transport paid by me. The college say I can come back but I’ve missed the course and now can only keep working as an unqualified volunteer. Doing this got me sanctioned because to the jobcentre the Work Programme is everything. The attachment fee to Maximus cost twice as much as my teacher training, and for what?

  12. Alan Moore January 1, 2013 at 8:33 pm - Reply

    An awful man, part of an awful government who will cause national rejoicing when they make their shameful exit at the next election.

  13. Baz February 15, 2013 at 2:47 pm - Reply

    Duncan Smith is pure evil ,vindictive slime. I watched as he sniggerd and actually said that he thought that the suicide of a disabled claiment who simply had egnough,was funny. Camoron is a weak livered coward, does he not realise that Duncans Smiths attack and demonisation of those most vunerable , and him not sacking this evil scum , will lead to his , as well as the Conservatives, demise at the election. He should take on board that all those who he and Smith deem to be low life waistrals, are in fact VOTERS. They will not forgive nor forget, and they have every right to. I hope that Duncan Smith not only loses his seat, but then will begin to suffer some long term illness or disability, becouse he will have then received his true reward for his nasty spiteful and vindictive ways.

  14. Donut March 28, 2013 at 10:14 pm - Reply

    Benefit sanctions = cutting money to disabled, and poor. IDS shame on you.

  15. H. N. Johns May 5, 2013 at 1:22 pm - Reply

    Because of men like this in the Conservative party, people are using their votes for UKIP/labour. Cannot believe that IDS is still Minister for the DWP. The Tories sure know how to make them look to everybody, as the cruel party. Shame we have to put up with another two years of this destructive party. Tories have never been so hated.

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