Duncan Smith’s speech was full of Tory false arguments and hid the homicidal facts
Tories are very good at making broad statements – claims that many people would support – and then using them to justify unreasonable policies.
Iain Duncan Smith gave a fine example of such behaviour in his speech yesterday.
He said disabled people should not be considered “victims to be sustained by government handouts” – and many people might accept this statement. We should not write anybody off automatically; everybody should take the opportunity to earn their own living, if they can.
What the Gentleman Ranker didn’t say was that his Conservative Party has been removing those opportunities, along with state support – so disabled people are being deprived of their benefits while also being denied any chance of getting a job. Does that seem fair to you? Does that seem reasonable behaviour from an organisation that is trying to re-brand itself as the ‘party of working people’?
Duncan Smith’s speech was riddled with falsehoods or false arguments based on selective observation.
“Almost half of people on ESA have been on the benefit for more than two years – this is despite the majority of ESA claimants saying that they would like to work,” he said – implying that people who say they would like to work must be able to do so. This is a false assumption. It assumes that these people have been wrongly classed as too ill to work, simply because they want to. They’ve been classed as too ill because they are too ill; whether they want to work or not is nothing to do with it.
Let’s also bear in mind that the work capability assessment system for ESA is fatally flawed and attempts to ignore medical evidence as much as possible in order to find as many people ‘fit for work’ as possible and clear them off the benefit books. Iain Duncan Smith ordered changes to the appeal procedure because the skyrocketing number of successful cases was an embarrassment to him and his department.
“The ESA has Labour’s essential mistake at its heart – that people are passive victims,” he babbled – but he did not provide any evidence to prove this. It’s just an unsupported claim.
“Of course if you treat people as passive that’s what they’ll become.” Oh really? What about all the people who’ll take offence at the implication and do the exact opposite?
“It’s no wonder, when the system makes doctors ask a simplistic question: are you too sick to work at all?” This is a flat-out lie, of course. While the benefit’s provision is based on whether a person is found to be ill, the finding is based on a large number of questions that are said to be intended to find out whether the claimant really is too ill to work (although, as already mentioned, the assessment system is fatally flawed). Medical evidence is also said to be taken into account, but this claim – by the Conservative Government – has been proved false.
“Conservative philosophy is rooted in human nature – not in Utopianism or in empty pity but in the yearning of people to make a better life for themselves and their children. That’s why we don’t think of people not in work as victims to be sustained on government handouts. No, we want to help them live lives independent of the state.” There is so much to be questioned here that one hardly knows where to start. Perhaps at the end, where he claims he wants people to live “independent of the state”. This is true – but not in the way he expects us to assume. Iain Duncan Smith wants to cut people off of the benefits they deserve, and leave them to manage in whatever way they can – it won’t be any of his concern.
That is why many thousands of people, cut off from incapacity benefits, have been dying of malnutrition, of their illnesses, or of despair – committing suicide because they cannot see a future for themselves under Tory tyranny.
So perhaps it would be more accurate for him to say: “We think of people not in work as victims to be culled by the deprivation of benefits.”
“The evidence of our reforms is that people respond to incentives. They take opportunities. They adapt to a changing environment.” This is argument by selective observation – a false argument that cherry-picks the ‘hits’ and ignores the ‘misses’. Never mind the thousands of deaths – a few people have been able to get themselves into jobs, for the relatively short period the DWP counts as a success. What is it, now? Six months? And what kind of jobs are they? Zero-hours contracts that don’t pay the rent? No comment on that from the Gentleman Ranker!
“Many people who are sick or disabled want to work. We need to help them find the work they can do.” Again he assumes – evidenceless – that they can work, just because they want to work. Not only is it a false assumption – it is homicidal, for the reasons listed above.
The speech went on to attack the relative poverty measure, starting with the lie that it was a Labour device (it’s actually the standard in most countries that are part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) – but, again, there are uncomfortable issues to be considered.
The use of tax credits to push working people above an arbitrary poverty line – as practised by the Blair and Brown governments – is questionable. It’s a stop-gap measure that doesn’t solve the main problem, which is that employers have been paying far too little to working people.
Let’s not hear any quibbling that the money isn’t there – we all know of employers paying themselves hundreds of times as much as employees, and the richest employers in the UK are now twice as wealthy as they were in 2009, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. That comes from taking more than their fair share – nothing more or less.
Is the Conservative Government, of which Iain Duncan Smith is a part, doing anything at all to encourage employers to pay a living wage? No. George Osborne’s re-branded minimum wage is a living wage in name only and will not cover workers’ costs, as we have all see in news coverage about the forthcoming tax credits cut.
So Iain Duncan Smith has attacked Labour for a policy that failed to address somebody else’s poverty measure, while failing to acknowledge that he is planning to make matters worse for millions of working people.
The really appalling aspect of this is that this article is now well over 1,000 words long and has addressed only a fraction of the Work and Pensions Secretary’s speech.
If he is to be congratulated on any part of it, it should be for managing to present a completely false summary of the situation facing the unemployed, sick and disabled – in a way that too many people will accept without question.
Tweeted @melissacade68
FullFact are supposed to be on the case but I am not holding my breath.
Full Fact? Well, it couldn’t be worse than their attempt to do a job on the benefit-related deaths.
I noticed the scrounging scumbag toff wannabee was still peddling the cynical lie and favourite canard of the nasties, that labour somehow caused the global sub prime banking crisis and ongoing (real economy) world recession ever since.
Of course anyone with even the most basic cognitive function knows it was caused by a global criminal cabal of too big to fail or jail corrupt financial elites with privileged access to governments and power everywhere, who are afflicted with the sort of greed, privilege, entitlement and untouchability the nasties are utterly oblivious to, if you’re wearing saville row camoflage, because they’re immerced in greed and corruption every day of their self righteous, vindictive lives.
Well, he’s kind of right. If you listen to Max Keiser (and you should) he is of the opinion that Lehmans went down as a consequence of a deal they had to come to London to do because in London there just aren’t the financial regulations there are everywhere else in the world. And why aren’t there those regs? Because Thatcher deregulated finance (Big Bang) and Brown and Darling stood back and let the banks do whatever the hell they wanted (light touch regulation). So, in a way, in a far more complex fashion than I imagine Duncan-Smith could ever understand, he could be partly right.
Then again, one of my connected American friends assures me London’s only deregulated because American Big Finance wants there to be somewhere in the world it can do its dirty deals, the ones it can’t get away with on Wall Street. So, who knows, eh? :-)
I do listen to Max although I think he goes off the rails at times he shows great insight on some topics. His guests are far more interesting when they manage to get a word in edgeways.
As for the nasties and bungling Boris everyone knows, surely, that London trades on being the finance money laundering capital of the world. Something the mainstream media are very careful to never mention.
Duncan-Smith’s declarations about people on ESA wanting to work are cast into new perspective when one considers they already can, in some cases for as many hours as they’re able. It clearly states this on the government’s own web site https://www.gov.uk/employment-support-allowance/eligibility
What on earth’s he on about then? Is he not willfully misleading his own party at conference? Aren’t there rules against that sort of thing? Oh, and even you’re doing it now; they aren’t government handouts, they’re paid for social security benefit entitlements.
I know what they are. The only times “handouts” are mentioned in the article are in comments made by – guess who? – Iain Duncan Smith.
The ‘living wage’ as defined by Gideon Osborne is below the level of the real living wage.
I was recently involved with a charity who were giving training to people with Aspbergers, autistic spectrum disorder and other moderate learning difficulties who were looking for work, unsuccessfully. This training was mostly commissioned by some of the job centres and delivered in the centres to small groups.
I was asked to be part of the penultimate session where each client would be offered a mock interview. I am assured that attendance etc on this course was not compulsory nor would it be used to affect the benefits etc claimed.
The clients ‘applied’ for ‘real’ jobs in that they were examples of real posts that had been advertised in the local job centres though no real jobs were actually available I conducted the interviews and provided full feedback for each individual as though they were real interviews.
Apart from it being a fantastic experience for me I believe that many of the clients benefitted from the course , gaining confidence and self awareness. However, with the best will in the world some of the clients would be unlikely to gain paid employment in a commercial business due to their difficulties. Some would need full time support to stay on task, others would be capable of a few hours a week helping out at local charity shops with some support, others though could work if they could get past the interviewers.
People with learning difficulties can appear fit for work and have all the physical attributes to pass a medical. They would even tell an assessor all the things they can do. It’s only when you delve deeper that you realise the difficulties they have. These people can be productive and gain the satisfaction from a job well done.
Sadly the very mechanism by which they could be supported in this was closed by the coalition government.
Remploy were a fantastic agency for employing and training people with a huge variety of disabilities and often the help given allowed the workers to gain employment in the commercial world.
Now the Tories expect them to fend for themselves and compete against the general population of unemployed people who would not require extra support and therefore extra cost. This rarely happens.
The Tory policies sometimes seem reasonable when seen on their own but then we find a second policy which completely changes the first to make it punitive and unfair if not fatal.
I’m glad you raised the issue of Remploy and the fact that Conservatives have been closing doors to the disabled, not opening them. I wanted to mention this in the article but it went in a different direction.
The latest is that IDS feels he was “cheated” of the opportunity to become PM by al-quaida & Tony Blair!!!!
Perhaps soon you’ll be able to publish your own account of your fight and struggles against this man and his vanity projects and lethal policies, which would be a remarkable read.
I’m working on something at the moment, in fact!
God forbid Florence if IDS was the PM his ideology is not for this country hopefully he will fall ill and at that point you can be sure he’ll be changing his tune and sharpish
but this is unlikely to happen and like in the case of Mrs thatcher they go to their grave in personal comfort and for free with their select carers to pick up their mess that they have left behind on the minimum wage
The trouble is you’re a journalist, and you’re obviously good at picking apart political guff and bluster and getting to the heart of things. But speeches like this – and those of all the Tory heavyweights this year – aren’t made with people like you in mind, they’re made for the bored, distracted, busy people just back from a long shift at some rotten job, and who don’t have the time or energy to pick apart speeches like this. So when IDS and co blurt out things like “fairness”, or “support the disabled into work” they mutter “good for them” and take away the impression this mob in government mean what they say.
What we need is a politician who is willing to challenge the bullsh*t spewed forth by he Tories, to challenge them on everything they say, and do it in plain language that people are willing to listen to. Is Corbyn that politician? We’ll see I suppose.
Yes, I am a journalist, and yes, we are trained to examine people’s words more closely than simple face value (or at least, we were), but the trouble is that so many journalists simply aren’t doing that job – or they only do it on the people they don’t like.
your the only journalist, mike that seams to understand the wider picture as much as i love the likes of some of the others they just go through the motions
they have not done any groundwork on the topic so cant engage properly to the person their interviewing which is a complete waste of time
his logic is very middle eastern presidential style everything will implode if we don’t get rid of the bad guys/ terrorists/sick and disabled
the only thing that is certain in that his logic will kill many as the continuing ongoing stress will leads many to take their own lives
he will not give up until he killed as many as possible as he will say yes i have killed many by the reforms but have helped many that were written off but are now back in work full time
this will leave blank canvas in going forward with no sick and disabled left alive as as you become sick they will force you into work or to live without benefits
there are no examples of IDS’s mindset to go on at this time from any government so we will have to wait and see the wider picture
As i say the only thing that will happen is that the deaths of the sick and disabled will get much higher and that is a certainty
I started one about IDS’s speech last night, it’s unfinished because I got sidetracked on researching tory psychobabble techniques – you know, words like “incentivise” and “fair” in the context of cruel and antihumanist policies. So it’s grown into two blogs. But I know that just thinking and writing about the malice in wonderland bulls**t justification narratives the Tories sprout is actually exhausting. And as you say, your well-managed and well-written piece easily became over 1,000 words, and yet we only ever touch the tip of the iceberg.
There’s an underlying menacing threat to disabled people in Duncan Smith’s speech, probably only picked up by those targeted by punitive policy – those of us who are sensitised and know the massive chasm between rhetoric and real life. Between the policy justification narrative and the INTENTIONAL policy consequences. Disabled people are, on the whole, the most active and coherent social critics of conservative policy. Listening to this vindictive misinformation made me ill, Mike. My skin actually crawled then blistered – part of my illness (lupus), but triggered by the distress I felt at hearing what is, essentially, the pronounced end of welfare as we know it. He said that government should not be expected to keep disabled people out of poverty with “state handouts”. Welfare arose to tackle poverty .. WTF does he think welfare is about? Punishment, deep insecurity, starvation and pain.
Nail on the head. You listen to/read the speech and you think, “There’s something deeply disturbing about this”. So you go into it and you realise it’s full of false arguments, the language is upside down, and the whole thing is rounded off with bald assumptions that don’t bear any resemblance to the facts.
And then you try to write about it.
Iain Duncan Smith. The man is so twisted he could be the barbed wire on his own extermination camp – and in a metaphorical way, he probably is.
IDS I am sure has a narcissistic mental disorder. But what does it say, that so many people in the UK voted for him ?
Only around 22,000 people ever vote for Iain Duncan Smith – and you should remember that this is in the highly-Conservative Chingford and Woodford Green constituency that previously supported Norman Tebbit.
We may all draw our own conclusions!
What scares me most is the IDS soundbites play to the publics perceptions of scroungers etc and hardly anyone in the press or tv holds them to account and the public that relies on msm for its news are the ones who tend to vote and vote Tory or Ukip.
Somehow the truth needs to be heard through msm too.
OK I am now fully realizing this guy is a complete idiot. I mean you can get the idea of what he is trying to get at overall. And some if these are real issues.. but he is so hamfisted and crude the question is what level would any of his projects be at. For this very serious issue we need far better minds getting involved than this person. I mean WTF is this mentality he is bringing. He is obsessed with revenge on some teeny fraction of society and takes it out on a wide segment of society.
I think IDS has a narcissistic disorder, and seriously, this guy has to go soon, in the next re-shuffle or the tories will not win another election. Actually from the condition of both the right and left wing in England I just do not feel hopeful for the UK. Corbyn is a breath of fresh air, but I am in scotland and we have had enough a long time ago.
My take on this is the Cameron etc, probably keep giving him a second chance, but due to his sick pathology he will just keep FXXing up.
No, no – you’re confusing what he says with what he means. Iain Duncan Smith is a LIAR.
No, it’s far more likely Duncan-Smith does and says everything he does and says with handing benefits over to the American Insurance giant Unum in mind, they being who are behind the so-called welfare reforms. Please Google for Unum scandal to find out what’s going on and has been since the early 90s when the Tories got them in as ‘consultants’. That’s all it is, it’s all about the money, nothing more, never has been.
its about the money AND political worldview, and no doubt many other factors. IDS is following the psychosocial model, which is interesting but has some problems.. yet I didnt hear of him commissioning any research applications. I guess they dont like the uncertainty that science could prove their beliefs wrong. One of meany reasons why he is incompetent. Imagine if scientific reasoning had to run all our politics, that would really shine a light on the truth.
IDS is following the psycho model. You may be referring to the biopsychosocial model but he ditched the bio and social aspects.
He is incompetent but, as I have mentioned before, he’s also homicidal.
And science isn’t everything, you know.
Duncan-Smith is, of course, well-versed in lies and dishonesty.
They keep saying Labour was to blame for the crisis, when it was a worldwide crisis, if they’d been in power, it still would’ve happened, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything different. He is the biggest scrounger of all, ponces off his father in law as well as poncing off the state, largest shirker of all, can outdo the royals!
the main problem with the legal points are that all those that have died which runs into thousands some would have naturally died. at the time they were assessed by ATOS.
What the UN or any lawyer would need to work out in that did the persons failure of their medical by ATOS speed up their death expedite it through stress be it there heart packed up or the person went into shock which we know has happened or did the person panic and commit suicide of which many have done.
all of the deaths will have a history. what a lawyer would need to set out is a time frame of events prior to the ATOS medical and then again afterwards” as to determine along with the coroners report what actually has happen and why this person has died and who ultimately caused the death was it by negligence or criminal negligence a very big difference despite the outcome being the same
. The lawyers fees would per person run into thousands of pounds as the time needed to get to the full facts would take months and on a mass block of people that have died years costing millions of pounds involving hundreds of staff.
my belief will be for the next government to set up a governing body like in the Hillsboro disaster to get justice for all of the bereaved families though the prosecuting of all of those that have or had played a part in the deaths of the sick and disabled.
As these are crimes against humanity all those arrested will need to stand trial in the Hague in Holland as the gravity of the crimes being so serious would not not be able to be held in the UK as the number of deaths well exceeds 10000 sick and disabled people which is way beyond any of our mental ability’s to cope with
‘And science isn’t everything, you know.’
It kinda is ….
Given that at heart science is an attempt to explain how the world and processes work, where things came from, The Big Bang, etc that’s pretty much everything. Everything else derives from this.
Trouble is, science aims to be rational at all times; politics isn’t. You can’t explain political choices of populations with science because people go the wrong way. The situation might be x but because politician y has told you it is z, they vote for him. Everybody races down a blind alley for five years, at the end of which, instead of working out what the blazes went wrong and then making choices that solve the problem, like as not, enough people listen to the wrong politician again and we get saddled with five more years of nonsense, based on a delusion that was peddled by a charlatan and has nothing whatsoever to do with science.
we can explain political choices with science. There is a whole field dedicated to this called neuropolitics, and well enough developed that there are many Ted Talks required just to summarize it.
You’re splitting hairs – and if there are “many” Ted Talks required for what you’re mentioning, then it clearly isn’t a very exact science, which tends to prove what I’m saying.
for the record i am very well versed in forensic pathology and when someone dies from making a visit to ATOS and is told they’re fit and then they die alarm bells should be ringing as to what caused that death and any decent forensic pathologist will tell you likewise
maybe alarm bells are going off, but we dont know. Dont internal audits have to cover such cases ? But there might not be any procedure to automatically release the information or provide it in certain formats.
Try to keep up: Tory policy is to respond by saying no causal relationship can be proved between the deaths of claimants and the loss of benefit – even though a causal relationship has indeed been proved. So government policy is to deny the facts. No alarm bells. No internal audits.
You’re right that there’s no procedure to release the information automatically. Policy is to withhold it indefinitely and, after being forced to divulge some information in response to FoI requests, to make it harder for members of the public to submit FoI requests.
of course, the problem is how do you prove the link till something happens. It could be proven by setting up two groups in the WCA phase. One group is randomly assigned to enstating the ESA regardless of WCA doubts. If there is higher death rate in the group stripped of benefits, then it would be conclusively proven the loss of benefits leads to death.
But you can see the problem here, it demands that governments do scientific analysis on their own policy, during the enactment of policy, which they dont. So we go on for years till its unravelled, such as in single case studies, but even then they just provide an exception and we still do not know what is what for the whole group of WCA claimants.
This is one reason why the Tories are incompetent in this matter, as they are not designing contradicting discovery. Its all about enacting their political belief for them, but if we desire a competent system it should be about science and political belief should not come into it. And this also applies to left wing policy, there shouldn’t be unfettered dishing out of resources without checking if that also causes problems.
The whole concept of political belief is itself a problem, because a belief should not be dictating policy. The outcomes and environment the electorate want should dictate it, and what politicians want should be of little relevance here. The current situation is politicians try to reflect what the electorate want but integrate it with their political beliefs.. but then politicians do whatever they like for five years, and its mostly about enacting their beliefs. Then come the year before election time they tone down policies which reflect their beliefs and start to reflect the electorate again…
I mean WTF, when you think about it, this situation is ridiculous !
The scientific analysis of the policy should have been carried out before it was ever enacted. Strangely, it wasn’t. What does that tell us?
“Then it clearly isn’t a very exact science.”
Ok this is one of the reasons I despair of modern political debate. The lack of understanding of science and scientific method is profound.
Science is based on empirical experiment. You test a hypothesis by running it through various hoops to discover what happens. You run the same test 100 times and get the same result so you conclude with some certainty that this is the way it works. Science however recognises that there is a possibility that on say the hundred and first test you may get a different result so you can’t say that you are positive. Ie not exact.
This is empiricism. We observe what happens and draw conclusions from that. We can confidently predict, based on those conclusions, what an outcome will be. Sometimes, rarely, the outcome will differ.
That’s science exactly.
But in politics you can’t predict exactly what the outcome will be because the information going into the experiment isn’t factually accurate; people are told lies by politicians. Those lies change every time the experiment is run, meaning you can never predict the outcome.
glad you agree, so if politics is the problem then we should just do away with the need for politicians altogether.
That would open up the possibility for greater corruption.
To what, exactly, are you suggesting I agree?
You can factor in an allowance for unreliable data. Maybe you’re suggesting that politics shouldn’t be left to the politicians. Certainly it shouldn’t be left to PPE graduates. They have no idea that their prejudices are baseless.
No, I’m not suggesting that politics shouldn’t be left to politicians because I think that could lead to even worse corruption.
I think it’s unfortunate that people are gullible and lazy and can’t be bothered to fact-check what politicians say and then penalise them when they’re found to be lying but, until they do, politics will not be a subject that can be measured scientifically.
You can’t factor in an allowance for unreliable data because you don’t know how people will react to it.
Like you Guys I could probably write a few 1,000 words on ‘IDS’ the DW&P more importantly their Policies toward the unemployed, Physically disabled and others. But then I have better things to with my time….
Out of curiosity I assume neither of you have ever had to sign on since the financial Meltdown in 2008: much less open yourself up to the horrific treatment the DW&P doles out to Jobseekers and the disabled every time they walk into a JC+
Let me assure you from the first interview you basically give up your right to be treated as a Human Being and with the pressure they apply with their Big Sticks; neigh if the smallest sniff of a carrot: I challenge anyone to remain Calm and keep a positively healthy Mind
Unemployment aside when the Conservative’s or Coalition Government should I say came to power; along with the National Press they overnight went from reporting almost daily of more Job losses as the Bankers squeezed the Credit available to Business’s and the Blue Chip Giants restructured by pushing people out of the door as fast as their Managers and Board members could vote new Bonus and Benefit Packages into their wage packets: To Blaming just about everything on the Unemployed
And in one fail swoop we arrived at a wholly unjustifiable new criminal class tag the ‘Dole Scroungers’ who purpose reported the Media~! it seemed was to take away every hard working persons taxes so they could live the life of ‘Riley’
As if the Fiscal Ministers weren’t already masters of that~!
It could almost be considered funny that the supposed educated hard working public could swallow whole such drivel (The Tory ‘Divide and Rule style of Governance coming once again to the Fore) but they did: Thus opening the gates and unleashing everything that has come to pass since
Government workers expected to do more but denied recompense held to 1% cost of living for years at a time: Stripped of Job Security and let go in ever increasing numbers despite having to manage more and more people moving to the UK swelling our population numbers. Their Jobs got cut because they couldn’t generate a profit: sound familiar~?
And so the in work out of work ‘Great goal post shuffle began in earnest’
From the beginning it was the Older Workers on both side of the fence Private or Public; many with years of on the Job experience who felt the brunt of the lay-offs regardless of how Loyal they had been to their Employers or for that matter how far up the ranks they had progressed
They cost to much and simply had to go….
The Upper Management the Directors and the Boards they reported to although saying ‘how hard it was to make such tough decisions~!’ to the Media. Still managed to reap the Benefits with their performance related pay and bonus scales’
Even the Government Ministers after they were caught fiddling their expenses’ with their faces still covered in honey could only muster a mumbled apology before returning to gouging from the public purse even though their was no cash they would merely trade with the Bankers to provide them with more honey to feast on; never mind the public is always their to pay of the amounting debts
And these are the people who call us lazy or criminal regardless of if we work or not
Were not lazy more Crazy for letting you get away with it for so long
The Idea of equality like common sense has long since left the room: common sense even had an obituary announced in the times a few years back: they replaced Honesty with self serving greed
Even Honour got tossed unless you count Honour amongst thieves
It’s what really separates us all, even those who work: while we will fight to make a living: the powers to be just treated as commodities; offered tit bits if they have the right attributes but with no thought ore care being given once were used up and tossed out
even when we have paid into the system that is meant to look after us all once we can no longer earn
Does the Government do anything about it Hell No~! their to busy acting on behalf of their real paymasters: Call then the Establishment or the Corporation Of London if you want to know the truth…. if they did it’s a sure way for them to end-up like the rest of us only without the riches or the guaranteed pensions for life once they leave office
They used to say that money makes the World Go Around that it’s what oils the Machine (Economy) well that’s well and truly gone out the window thanks to Austerity their may be Billions floating about but the majority of us will never see it and as usual it has a way of avoiding the Nations Purse
Austerity may have kept the interest rates low, yet year after year the prices just keep on rising
If it isn’t Dear George’s taxes and money raising duties : the multiplying effect that causes firms to keep charging more and more for their wears
Then it’s easily covered by those who hide their ill begotten gains off shore out of the prying eyes and reach of the Tax Man but with full and covert help form those we entrust to make sure they pay their dues
Austerity is loved by the conservatives as it keeps inflation low with interest rates low which keeps house prices high as we have seen no movement in the interest rate for the past 7 years and in all probability it will stay like this all the time conservatives are in power as this is their no 1 strength