Now IAIN DUNCAN SMITH is challenging Liz Truss – over BENEFIT CUTS
The Tory who inflicted the most harmful benefit cuts ever to blight the UK has raised his voice to challenge new prime minister Liz Truss – saying her plan to cut benefits in real terms is too harsh.
Wait, what?
Iain Duncan Smith, whose cuts to sickness benefits led to at least 2,400 unexplained deaths between 2011 and 2014, now says benefit cuts are bad?
Well, yes:
It may not be hypocrisy.
He resigned in 2016 over plans to cut disability benefits, saying they were too harsh as well.
And the argument he is using now – that cutting money available to benefit claimants is likely to harm them – is entirely correct. How do I know?
Because I wrote it.
I, along with many other campaigners of the time, made it clear when newspaper stories about people dying for that reason were proliferating.
Suppose a claimant is diabetic. If they can’t afford to power their refrigerator, then they can’t keep their insulin at the right temperature. What happens if they then go into diabetic shock?
Just ask the family of David Clapson.
But This Writer doesn’t recall any remorse from Iain Duncan Smith over the deaths his policies caused while he was Work and Pensions Secretary.
Perhaps a more likely explanation for this is that the policy is likely to be hugely unpopular during a cost-of-living crisis caused by the Tory government.
The thought of people on benefits receiving a help package that is reduced if Truss refuses to authorise an inflation-linked uplift in benefits may be deeply unpopular with voters, so perhaps Iain Duncan Smith is simply trying to cling on to his Parliamentary seat.
His other words are absolutely correct, though: if a government wants to build economic growth, it needs to give money to the poorest in society because they are the ones who will spend it – not the richest.
He is the latest in a lengthening line of senior Tory MPs to challenge the prime minister’s authority.
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How many billions did this one loss over his UC billions around 34 billion whot would the peasants say if only they new how many billions he had squandered away
He may be complaining now, but this doesn’t excuse his attitude and policies over the last ten years! He STILL needs to be criminally prosecuted for manslaughter or misconduct!