IDS’s empathy gap – dwpvendetta
Following up on the revelation that Iain Duncan Smith laughed at the fact that a rape victim is being charged Bedroom Tax on the panic room in her house, DWP victim Peter Styles had this to say, on his own blog:
IDS cannot possibly know what it’s like to deal with the real consequences of his draconian reforms. He hasn’t experienced putting by more than half your Job Seeker’s Allowance every month so you can subsidise the £200-odd shortfall in Housing Benefit. Mr Duncan-Smith has never had to live on half the paltry sum the government deems necessary to keep life together. He has never experienced being limited to Aldi for buying food or Wetherspoons as the only vaguely affordable social setting – I seriously doubt if he has ever been in a branch of either.
It remains to be seen if IDS has seen the 60 secret dossiers investigating benefit-related deaths. If indeed he has read any of them we do not know what passed through his mind or his emotional state whilst reading them.
I seriously doubt IDS has any interest in the situation faced by those trying to help those who help those sanctioned. The Brighton Unemployed Centre is facing closure at present, but highly skilled and professional volunteers are struggling amid uncertainty and low morale.
It’s hard to see that he has empathy about anything much – apart from the ability to laugh at rape victims. Indeed, the most traumatic thing IDS has ever experienced is when in 2003 his own MPs passed a motion of no confidence in the leadership of the party and was forced to resign.
Here’s a dissection of his abilities by ‘colleague’ Michael Portillo – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Ip7ajMoZU.
“I resigned from the Conservative Party when Iain Duncan-Smith, probably the lamentable choice of leader for any political party in living memory became leader” David Mellor
Read more at dwpvendetta.
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I really hate that callous, evil b****rd! I don’t think those words are too strong for your blog. He deserves them utterly.
Ian Duncan Smith a thoroughly nasty bully and a thoroughly dishonest fraudster. The man should be put on trial.
This person is not fit for the position he holds in public office or for any other public office in my opinion and is probably one of the principle reasons that the Tories will lose the next election.
Let’s hope so. Trouble is he has plenty of time to do far more damage, which given his past, he will.
It is absolutely clear to me that ID-S has mental and/or emotional problems. He has a complete lack of empathy with other people’s point of view or interests 9if they do not accord with his own. Without wishing to denigrate others with similar problems, there are various conditions which lead to an absence of empathy for others, and to me what most resembles ID-S behaviour is Psychopathy. This does not mean “an axe-wielding madman” and only a minority of psycopaths actually kill, but they do have any emotional response to someone else’s suffering or death.
I have already written to my M.P. stating this, and urging that Westminster investigates his fitness for public work. I urge everyone else also to write to their M.P. We MUST pile on the pressure to end this brutal bully’s reign of terror and gross financial expense
IDS has run the Department of Work & Pensions to the absolute very best of his inability.
How enormous must that inability be for the likes of *David Mellor* to say, “No I’m sorry, I really have to draw the line somewhere”?
In my own opinion, I believe that IDS is running the DWP as he thinks it should be run. Unfortunately, he has totally misunderstood its purpose. Recently he said in a meeting, “The claimants’ contract with the taxpayer.” this phrase was also used by another MP, in relation to a court case. Any day now I expect to hear it from a member of JCP staff.
So what is this “Contract with the taxpayer” IDS keeps banging on about?
We are all taxpayers and at some time in our life the vast majority of us are going to need some help, in the form of welfare. That’s why it’s there, in the event that it’s needed.
The only difference between working and not working is time. Some of the time you’re working, some of the time you’re not. When you’re working you pay income tax and NI. When you’re not working you get welfare, until you start working again.
This is how it is in a capitalist economy, where a surplus of labour is always a requirement. Welfare keeps that surplus going until they’re needed again.
IDS appears to have missed this important need and, in doing so, he has created a rift between us workers, Government and each other.
While he continues to lead the DWP, things can only get worse.
http://thegreatcritique.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/if-fear-is-truly-inseparable-from-respect-then-and-only-then-ids-has-my-respect/
This is the callous evil waste of space that has changed a simple “We have received your complaint letter” into an anxiety inducing event.
At last we have a champion in Your obt svt Mr Sivier. Alter years of being, according to the Government Newspeak Economically Inactive disabled off-flow we are as I have always contended, DWP Victims.
To quote the pretender squatting at number ten “Nothing more nothing less”