Ian Posted April 2, 2013 Report Share Posted April 2, 2013 I received this petition via email and thought it worth sharing. I'd certainly like to see this man learn what it's like for those who struggle day to day rather than just talk nonsense about it. The petition challenges him to back up his claim he could live on £53 per week "if he had to" with evidence of doing so. https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=21557&alert_id=qrSdtClCyu_PlhQVCHjwz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
griff Posted April 2, 2013 Report Share Posted April 2, 2013 would love to see him get a dose of reality.... sadly it won't happen and if it did he couldn't possibly admit that he had made a mistake as that would throw a spanner in the works with regard his plans. i think michael portillo did a week on the dole or something a few years back didn't he? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted April 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2013 I'm not sure about Michael Portillo but I'd like to see IDS on the dole - and not just for a week either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yantan Posted April 2, 2013 Report Share Posted April 2, 2013 I find IDS an annoyingly smug git and I'd love to see him live on £53 a week and also have to go through the benefits system. Portillo did experience the benefit system for a short time when he lived on benefits in a council flat. To his credit he admitted it was difficult and it changed his attitude. I'd say more but am tapping this out on the tab with one finger and it would take me an hour. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loo Posted April 2, 2013 Report Share Posted April 2, 2013 I agree it would need longer than a week - we could all do it if we knew it was just for week and we had money for the rest of the month to pay the bills. He made my blood boil, he really did. Come the revolution, comrades, come the revolution! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murtle Posted April 2, 2013 Report Share Posted April 2, 2013 Sadly everyone does what they have to. Living on £53 would change your whole life and would need to be done for a while to truly understand what it means. Away would have to go any of the savings and luxuries already owned. But there is always the people you know that can give favours or jobs etc! However, everyone ends up surviving on what they have because they have to. Living on what they have can be a bit different. Personally I wouldn't want to see him doing it, as I would be quite happy not to see him anyway! xxx 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owl Posted April 2, 2013 Report Share Posted April 2, 2013 He appears to be unbelievably stupid. Also unaware of the cost of keeping your home, or part of it, warm enough to survive a very cold winter. Remember the poor geologist who got pilloried by the tabloids because she objected to being taken off voluntary work at the local museum to work for nothing at Poundland on workfare scheme? He really joined the mob in attacking her without getting facts first. She has since found a paid part time job in a supermarket, and is happy to do that so she is not being a snob. IDS sidestepped the crucial point, which is that flourishing firms are getting free labour instead of employing people. Why should taxpayers subsidise their wages bill? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murtle Posted April 2, 2013 Report Share Posted April 2, 2013 Reading back it doesn't seem so clear, what I meant about favours and jobs was in reference to the old boys network which means sadly some of them won't ever understand what it means to truly struggle. That whole thing about companies getting free labour is disgraceful. They should pay for it. I can understand people doing work experience for a week or two to get experience but not what was expected of them. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted April 3, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 (edited) I'm not against the idea of someone who has been out of work a while being given something like a "work trial" for a "short period" (perhaps even a month or two) in order to prove they can do the job. The trouble is that these schemes appear to be run by people who want to be seen to be doing something rather than people who are focussed on getting people into work. Around here they continually put people into poundland (and other places) but there is no proper measure of a successful outcome or requirement to give such people a job at the end of it. It therefore becomes far too easy for unscrupulous firms (or Managers) to just acquire a constant source of free labour.# As for the "wonderful" work oprogramme, all those people in need of a job, many of them under G4S or it's subcontractors & yet where were the adverts / SIA training for the Olympics jobs they claimed to be unable to fill? Edited April 3, 2013 by Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murtle Posted April 3, 2013 Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 Around Christmas I believe a number of top named companies (including tescos) used the free labour. I think it is disgraceful as those would have been the Christmas temp jobs that many rely on annually for extra income. The week or two weeks I was thinking of was when I did my a levels we had to do work experience, it was unpaid but then so was school!! Degrees with a Year in industry don't expect their students to go out and work for nothing. (though sometimes lowly) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murtle Posted April 3, 2013 Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 http://www.boycottworkfare.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yantan Posted April 4, 2013 Report Share Posted April 4, 2013 If people are required to work for their Jobseekers then the work they should do should benefit the community in some way - not multi national businesses getting free labour to help boost their profits. Anyone remember Job Creation from the early 80's? I don't know how successful it was overall but I knew people round here that benefited from the "jobs" that were created. We had unemployed people going out repairing footpaths, styles, little wooden bridges, drystone walls etc. which in turn gave them skills that helped them gain employment with organisations like The National Trust and The Forestry Commission. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted April 4, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2013 (edited) Well, IDS apparently won't be taking any lessons from this stunt / "the left" - yet another example of him opening his big mouth before establishing facts! He doesn't seem to appreciate that someone who can afford to ignore the dole and just live off savings isn't really struggling at all. As to nobody having given him a damn penny I wonder where he thinks the "pennies" paying his wages in Government or the army actually come from? http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4871137/iain-duncan-smith-calls-benefit-petition-stunt.html Edited April 4, 2013 by Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murtle Posted April 4, 2013 Report Share Posted April 4, 2013 I don't remember that yantan but sounds really good. The problem, for me, is that I have known people (as i am sure others have too) who have worked and saved. Then when they loose their job are expected to then use that to live on, which is fine, but others spend without a care and then get the dole anyway. I don't know what the answer is but it is frustrating and does generate people who would rather spend now then have it held against them later. I think what he is referring to when he says not having money given to him is he did in the end, marry into money - so his wife would have had money given to her. Otherwise all working people have money given to them!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackmagic Posted April 4, 2013 Report Share Posted April 4, 2013 In 1980's my nephew got a placement with a local firm when he left school and went onto technical college at age 16. It was under the Skillseekers programme, a government-funded, work-based training programmes for young people where they were employed by a firm for a set number of weeks , while being paid a skillseekers allowance. They would then move onto another firm. Thus giving them experience of different jobs. My nephew loved working at one of the places he went and was offered a permanent job with them. Against his tutors wishes he left the programme and stayed on with the firm and has worked his way up. He has just become a director of that firm with the intention of taking over the firm when the other director retires in a few years time. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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