A health warning goes with this post. Before reading the link you need to be calm, your blood pressure low. Do your yoga breathing or something. Because you could very well get angry.
It's an "interview" with Iain Duncan Smith. It's from The House magazine, the MPs' own journal, and it's not an interview at all, just a chance for IDS to spout, unchallenged, his version of reality. You need to consider not just the obvious divergence from truth, about sanctions and food banks and so forth. You need to think about the mental processes which lead a man into believing he knows better than all the voices raised against him. Here it is.
Okay? I'm not going to dissect the article; it would be too long a task. But I will pick out one sentence: “But it’s also important that you do that by reforming the system so that those who are in the system are essentially rewarded for the right behaviour and no longer does the system perversely reward behaviour that is destructive." "The system"; you thought social security was about state help when you needed it. But no. It's about rewarding "right behaviour" (as defined by who?) and not "behaviour that is destructive".
This article oozes contempt for everyone who does not agree with him, including the leaders of his own church. There is only one acceptable version of truth, whether it be on food banks (who apparently have an empire to build) or on sanctions (since he's been into a jobcentre he knows that the whistle-blowers and their clients are making it up) and nothing will sway his opinions.
I'm sorry to inflict this on you on a sunny weekend. But this is a man whose delusions are harming millions.
Smith has sociopathic tendencies. I watched the excellent Clint Eastwood movie, Escape from Alcatraz again earlier in the week. The scene where the psychotic prison warden (played by Patrick McGoohan) sees the portrait of himself painted by the inmate named ‘Doc’ that captures his inner soul in the most perverse and warped manner. Especially when he responds with the same warped look on his face. The scene is short and lasts but a couple of seconds. However, it captures the essence of the man perfectly. This scene always reminds me of Iain Duncan Smith.
ReplyDeleteLet’s face it we rarely see a photo of the man WITHOUT an angry look or scowl on his mug. Smith not only disagrees with an increasing constituency of people ranged against him. Hi disagrees with their daring to do so in the first place, hence the contempt he has for those who easily pick his policies apart and hold him to account.
When Smith says “rewarded for the right behaviour”, what he really means is jobseekers dancing to the myriad of tunes laid down by the DWP, JCP, WP providers and in many cases individual advisers from both JCP and the WP. Thus a jobseeker can be penalised and sanctioned for applying to too few vacancies one day and too many the next! And whatever too few or too many is can vary from one adviser to the next!
The DWP was for a long time dysfunctional. It is now pretty much a rogue department increasingly devoid of compassion, decency and logic. This was bad enough Blunkett. The DWP is now being shaped in Smiths image.
IDS talks a lot about punishment and a utopian society where everybody works and contributes to the greater good,but he fails to have a plan that will actually work or even appear to work,everything he touches fails.We also have Esther McVee(are they blood relatives) who seems just as hell bent on destroying any chance that people have at regaining some sort of self respect,by running down the unemployed or disabled.
ReplyDeleteI am further away from employment than I have ever been,my full time job is making sure that I stay in the good graces of the JCP,I know it is idiotic to continue on this way,I hear about all the promised programmes to help you into work,I also see huge amounts of money being spent,but has anybody actually participated in a worthwhile course,I seem to be unable to find any and the JCP refuses to answer the question.
ReplyDeleteHere's my question - where are the rewards? Does he mean work? The Work Programme has failed to find sustained work for the long-term unemployed.
ReplyDeleteI think he means 'rewards' in the sense of 'not being sanctioned'. So, more Tory spin, then.
The Guardian has picked up on the same article:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/23/iain-duncan-smith-dwp-smug-editorial
Both the article and the comments are pretty coruscating.
I'm afraid I haven't the stomach to read Smith's original article.