We need to give IDS recognition

Iain Duncan Smith is just trying to stay afloat.

Everywhere you look you can’t help but notice that IDS is being slammed for his reasons for stepping down as Work and Pensions Secretary. From his own Tory party to the Labour Party, from past supporters to everyone in the public with an axe to grind.

Grind that axe they might and with good reason, he has presided over one of the most consistent campaigns against the working poor and disabled for many a year and his reason for quitting despite it all? Unfairness. Morality. The fact he couldn’t in good conscience go through with the latest round of cuts, this time to PIP payments. A benefit received by disabled people up and down the country.

Many are saying that his reasons for leaving are connected to his own stance on the EU referendum. He sits in the Brexit camp and it’s believed this resignation will help split the party further helping to convince the public that the right thing to do is leave.

That may or not be true. No one knows for sure. But I take a different view to most, that actually IDS is genuine..at least in part..for his reasons in wanting to leave.

IDS has had a very secure position in the cabinet. Like a good school prefect he has towed the party line and gone through with all the cuts thrown at him.

Few recall the near fallout between him and George Osborne when it was announced that working tax credits were planned to be cut before the Tories were beaten back by the House of Lords. IDS felt that he was being forced into yet more cuts which his work and Pensions budget could not accommodate as Osborne looked to use those saved funds elsewhere.

Fast forward to now (shortly after the announcement of planned cuts to ESA payments) and IDS is presented with, seemingly to him, unexpected cuts to PIP payments. Or at least he didn’t expect it to be announced in the budget. Already under fire from everywhere for his implementation of cuts to the poor it seems his back was well and truly against the wall and had a choice to make.

If you had a job where every request to not do something was thrown back at you by management and you were ignored at every opportunity..wouldn’t you pack it in…at least after some period of time? That’s exactly what’s happened here.

IDS has been the man in the spotlight for a long time and all for negative reasons whilst best buddies Cameron and Osborne laugh away on the front bench as they take the, wrongly applied, plaudits for a recovering and stabilising economy. It must have actually been a job role from hell.

To me, Cameron and Osborne look like the proverbial popular bully boy school kids in a playground of followers whilst a few sit on the periphery just trying to stay out of trouble but will even Polish the boots of the bullies if it means being popular. IDS did Polish their boots and got no recognition for it, now having been pushed to the brink IDS has had enough.

Why would he give up a secure ministerial role? Why would he risk the wrath of management and colleagues?

This isn’t a defence of what he has done. This is a recognition that he has done a good thing and boy is it good for the opposition.

Remember also that Cameron and his minions would much rather you believe his reason for quitting was Brexit rather than because their fiscal policy attack on the poor and disabled being the reason. It looks far better for them and takes the heat away. Let’s not give them the satisfaction.

IDS smacks of a lost little boy. Let loose on the vulnerable with the backing of the playground bully.. and now finds he isn’t quite like them..and on retreating.. find he himself has been cast away from the popular crowd.

Sympathy? No. Recognition? Yes.

IDS was the willing and culpable whipping boy, Cameron and Osborne the architects and they are still in power.

***Update 21/03/16 21:55****

I happened upon this article in the telegraph this evening that does point to clear evidence of a rift between IDS and Osborne giving credence to the argument that he did indeed quit because of the interference from Osborne and thus felt the announcement of cuts to PIP were a step top far and the resignation having nothing to do with Brexit.

By focusing on the reason of Brexit as the reason for the resignation what the left has done is miss a huge opportunity to focus on and attack Osborne and Cameron as the architects of the cuts. Osborne and Cameron loaded the gun and handed it to IDS but too often they interfered because in fact it was them who had their fingers on the trigger.

Instead Osborne and Co. can sit back and claim that they are the listening and caring government they always claimed to be and have now backed down on cuts to PIP. Now they look like the good guys to the gullible. The relevant part of the article we linked to above has been reproduced below.

Feuds between George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith

Early clashes over welfare reform

After a senior Treasury official described Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to reform the welfare system as “impractical”, Mr Duncan Smith told George Osborne that officials in his department must “show more respect”.

Child benefit

Mr Duncan Smith was caught off guard at the 2010 Conservative party conference when Osborne announced higher rate taxpayers would lose their child benefit.

Benefits for pensioners

Mr Duncan Smith said in his resignation letter that he thought the cuts would have been fairer if the Government had been willing to reduce “some of the benefits given to better-off pensioners”.

Child poverty

In 2014, Mr Osborne blocked Mr Duncan Smith’s attempts to redefine child poverty in a clash said to be motivated by “personalities”, not policy.

Tax credits

In November 2015 Mr Duncan Smith was reportedly ready to resign over a row with Mr Osborne over Universal Credit reforms. Mr Duncan Smith feared his flagship welfare programme would be undermined by Mr Osborne’s plan to raid Universal Credit to lessen the impact of the cuts to tax credits.

Disability benefits

Mr Duncan Smith said as he resigned that the planned changes to disability benefits were a “compromise too far” in the context of a Budget that included giveaways to the wealthy. Mr Osborne faced a backlash over his proposals to cut the benefits paid to the disabled by over £1bn.

Vulnerable stung by Tory wage laws and Care Firm price hikes

One of the largest care firms in the South East has stung its clients to pay for a staff wage increase. 

The wage increase though comes in place of a removed bonus. 

SCC Agency Ltd, which trades under the name South Coast Care and has recently failed a Care Quality Commission inspection had been giving its staff a 50p bonus on top of each hour worked at the end of each month but only for hours worked between Monday’s and Friday’s and dependent entirely on if a member of staff had any sick days.

South Coast Care though has moved to stop the end of month bonus and replace it with a 50p an hour wage increment in an effort to comply with the Conservatives new minimum wage laws but to pay for this wage increment they have attacked the most vulnerable by increasing their charges to the clients.

 

David Cameron delivering his speech at the Conservative Conference

 
South Coast Care is to increase its charges to clients, private and through Social Services, by 50p and hour. The exact same amount the staff wages are to be increased. 

 

South Coast Care website front page logo

 
The clients will pay the 50p an hour extra every day of the week but it’s staff will only see their wages increase by 50p an hour Monday to Friday, the same as when it was called a bonus. 

At a time when the most vulnerable in society are being hit by government cuts to benefits and government departments are also being hit by cuts which will be impacted again by these increases it strikes a raw note and will only have a negative affect on clients that already struggle to pay their care costs or on departments that are already facing restricted budgets.

The move appears to almost exclusively be in an effort to comply with the new wage legislation and is perhaps further proof that whilst the Tories are trying to increase wages, unscrupulous companies will only pass these increases on to the public, many of whom are already struggling. 

Workers in the care industry will testify to the working conditions in some care companies from high staff turnover, to low wages, to zero hours contracts or irregular  working hours. With this move by South Coast Care it will likely take away incentive for workers to work harder which is what the Conservatives recently talked about at their Conference and it will mean that they have to face clients that will feel the pinch even more.