‘Not quite true’ – it’s the story of Iain Duncan Smith’s life

"Not even this much": Iain Duncan Smith demonstrates how much he cares about the fact that his claims about unemployment being a lifestyle choice have been revealed as lies. It WON'T change his attitude and it WON'T change his policies.

“Not even this much”: Iain Duncan Smith demonstrates how much he cares about the fact that his claims about unemployment being a lifestyle choice have been revealed as lies. It WON’T change his attitude and it WON’T change his policies.

A comment piece in today’s Guardian has used new research to demonstrate that RTU’s (that’s Iain Duncan Smith to the uninitiated) claim about people opting for unemployment as a lifestyle choice is “not quite true“.

Hopefully the piece’s author, Hugh Moir, will forgive us if we don’t bat an eyelid in surprise.

Researchers spent eight months failing to unearth any examples of joblessness as a lifestyle choice, or multiple generations of a family in which nobody had worked. And – crucially: “They did not find any prevailing aversion or reluctance to work.”

The article continues: “The new research does suggest that the reasons for long-term endemic joblessness are much more complicated than the story crafted by government and eagerly gobbled up by irresponsible programme makers and scrounger-seeking tabloids.”

What’s unusual about this particular article is that, rather than end it there, Moir goes in for the kill: “Attention to the multiple causes of long-term joblessness would require well-funded, well-staffed social services, a focus on problems such as alcohol abuse in deprived communities and resources to fight the ravages of drug addiction in poor areas. But these are the very services that feel the full effect of the government’s cuts in local-authority funding and its wider objective to shrink the state.

“This is waste of potential on a grand scale, ruining lives, and damaging to the economy. But in the absence of any strategy to deal with the problem at its most complex, we are offered a narrative to define it at its most superficial. Four years in, subjected to scrutiny, that approach may at last be starting to unravel.”

As, of course, it should.

Interestingly, the piece starts by referring to stories crafted by other politicians about themselves, to make them seem more appealing. So Bill Clinton was “the boy from Hope” – a small-town boy from Arkansas who did well, rather than a privileged American who had studied at some of the best universities in the world; and George W Bush claimed he was an average boy from an average family when we know his father was a leading Republican and president-to-be.

It does not mention RTU’s own self-crafted story – that he attended the Universita di Perugia in Italy, that he was educated at Dunchurch College of Management, that he had a glittering Army career. This is odd, because it is more clearly bunkum than either of the US Presidents’ claims.

Vox Political has produced an entire article about his lies – one which, due to their sheer weight of numbers, remains unfinished. For further information, why not take a look at it?

After that, you’ll never believe a single word he says.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
exposing Iain Duncan Smith for what he is!

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

latest video

news via inbox

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

19 Comments

  1. Linda Mitchell September 12, 2014 at 3:39 pm - Reply

    I challenge the most hated MP he does not know what he’s talking about. He just a go with the flow man. Your fascists ideals are outdated like all your policies seeing you were not elected in by the public. So I say your polices don’t have to be adhered to not while you are unelected.
    You also have many deaths on your hands through the policies you have made, how will you deal with this? You don’t give a iota if people die. Terrible fascist element it’s disgraceful and you know it.

    • Mike Sivier September 12, 2014 at 3:41 pm - Reply

      Linda, I can’t forward this message on to Iain Duncan Smith but his email address is on the DWP website, I’m sure.

      • Linda Mitchell September 12, 2014 at 3:44 pm - Reply

        Ok thank you for that, I understand why you can’t send it thanks.

  2. Samuel Miller (@Hephaestus7) September 12, 2014 at 4:06 pm - Reply

    Apparently, Iain Duncan Smith has accepted that he has become a ‘hate figure’—one of his rare moments of truthful candidness.

    • Jane Young September 12, 2014 at 10:35 pm - Reply

      Sadly, he does not have the insight to understand why!!

  3. Roch September 12, 2014 at 4:29 pm - Reply

    If IDS had been educated by a British university rather the the University of Perugia things might have been different. Does anybody know what kind of degree and which classification IDS was awarded while studying in Italy? Or anywhere else for that matter? Answers on a postcard please…

    • Mike Sivier September 12, 2014 at 5:22 pm - Reply

      You really should have clicked on the link to the ‘Life and lies’ article, Roch. RTU was educated at the Universita per Stranieri (Univerity for Foreigners). He did not get any qualifications there or even finish his exams.

      • Roch September 13, 2014 at 7:08 am - Reply

        Ah! Well that explains a lot. Contrast William Beveridge who achieved a double first at Balliol College in Mathematics AND Classics and Iain Duncan Smith who hasn’t got one single undergraduate degree from anywhere. Should a completely undistinguished fantacist and non-intellectual failure and liar like Iain Duncan Smith ever have been charged with carrying out root and branch reform of Britain’s social security system? Almost every scrap of Smith’s destructive garbage originates from the Centre for Social Justice (a right-wing think tank which he founded with Tim Montgomerie about a decade ago) so most of Smith’s cancerous policies comes second-hand from unseen others: most times Smith does not seem to understand most of the policies, initiatives and cuts that he has introduced.

        Considering the pain, misery and death that IDS has caused I simply cannot understand why the British media have not exposed and torn Smith to pieces.

        • Mike Sivier September 13, 2014 at 9:58 am - Reply

          Don’t forget Philippa Stroud, who became RTU’s special advisor on policy while she was still drawing a paycheque from the CSJ – a clear conflict of interest.

  4. Ratty September 12, 2014 at 4:47 pm - Reply
  5. Nick September 12, 2014 at 5:07 pm - Reply

    he knows Linda i speak with his personal assistant from time to time and as she says he wont listen i told her she should never work with someone like that my daughter who has just started her career in politics would never do that under any circumstances

    my daughter likes politics but she realizes that there are many mp’s who have never cared about the public and IDS is one of them

    people say that mp’s go into public life for the good of the people ? i have known most mp’s from the sixties onwards and have yet to meet any mp in it for the good of the public

    They may like to think that is what they truly believe but I’ve myself have never seen that at any level nor at any time and think that the public overall have that idea about politicians wrong but vote for them none the less

    in reality the public deserve better and should force a system that is the wish of the people and mp’s that lie and cheat to get elected or lie and cheat when elected should be dismissed

    over time you would then end up with decent people only but it would take time

  6. Yosserian Hughes. September 12, 2014 at 6:24 pm - Reply

    WE KNOW he’s a damned LIAR……but he BELIEVES it to be true

    And yet it’s only dedicated blogs (like yours) that press this home to a small minority of the public. The mainstream media seem content to concentrate on other, pettier matters.

    Things like this really ought to be put out to the masses on a regular basis. It should NEVER (In an ian paisley style bellow) be left to lie – No pun intended.

    Seriously, the general public need it drillin’ into them that the “man” (Term used VERY loosely) is a pathological liar, fantasist, and has obtained pecuniary advantage by deception (s16 Theft Act, 1968, as he was elected before 2007 – when the law changed) for which he should be arrested & charged.

    The imbeciles of chingford & wherever ought to have their right of representation withdrawn if all’s they can vote in is that bigoted, hypocritical, parasitical, fraudulent, lyin’ gobsh*te, or the ‘skinhead’ they had before him (Tebbit)

    Some sort of anti-unemployment/disability genocidal cult mindset of those folk – it must be.

    Rant over.

  7. tommaz jay September 12, 2014 at 6:52 pm - Reply

    There’s nothing worse than an accomplished lier who believes their own lies.

  8. amnesiaclinic September 13, 2014 at 10:21 am - Reply

    Well, I hope the good people of Chingford wake up and smell the coffee very soon. We all need to be taking this on with our MP’s. The article is very clear about the real causes of joblessness and other social problems which need addressing and proper funding. Not cuts.
    The NHS party is hoping to inject real energy into this debate and challenging IDS so what are the Labour party’s plans or the greens etc? (Won’t mention ukip as we know they are a mess and just more of the far, far right).

  9. prayerwarriorpsychicnot September 13, 2014 at 1:20 pm - Reply

    Usual guff. Every time the subject of the extreme shortage of full time jobs paying a living wage is raised, the unemployed scapegoats are waved about like scarecrows. The govt needs to be told to stop changing the subject. The unemployed are not the cause of unemployment, the govt is. So what are THEY doing about it. Supply the jobs and people can do them.

    • Mr.Angry September 15, 2014 at 6:26 am - Reply

      Prayerwarrior the only jobs this shower think are worthwhile are banking or the financial sector. Most of them have a financial background and it shows as everything they are engaged in is selling of the state. None of them would know what welding, building, stone masonry, plumbing are, look at their lilly white hands and evil eyes money is their God.

      We are being sold out to the the US at an unknown pace, just watch what they sign off before being kicked out next May, but you can be sure they will all have some directorship or position in what they have sold.

      The most evil bunch of criminals I have witnessed in my 66 years on this planet.

Leave A Comment