"Hang on"

Perhaps you watched the interview with Iain Duncan Smith today on The Sunday Politics.  It was much as we have come to expect, although Andrew Neil did try, for once.  But from the moment IDS opened his mouth he lied.  Neil tried to nail him on Universal Credit.  There's no need to go over the true history of that epic failure.  IDS has rewritten history, as he always does.  He is the hero who spotted what was going wrong and got it all sorted out, and now it's all going swimmingly.  Neil confronted him with graphics to show that a normal, low-paid family in his own constituency would be worse off.  But it's pointless confronting Smith with figures; they don't register with him.  Today he was shown a graph and maintained completely different figures.  Whenever Neil tried to move on to a different point, Smith said, "Hang on," and reiterated the falsehood he was insisting on.  There was one whopping, blatant lie which stood out.  "The Treasury hasn't signed off Universal Credit," said Neil.  "Yes it has," said IDS, and nothing could move him.  Neil hates this, so after the interview he produced confirmation in the form of a direct quote from a Treasury official at the Public Accounts Committee recently.
The Feeding Britain report was brought up.  The bulk of people needing food banks were suffering benefit delays and sanctions.  No, "benefits were now being paid more quickly - from 88-89% being on time under Labour, to 96-97% now."  I have no idea whether that's true, but since IDS said it I assume it isn't; certainly the delays are much, much longer now.  And anyway, he said, food bank use "is tiny in proportion here compared to a place like Germany which has more generous benefits and in which you have a higher level of pay.  So just saying it is to do with benefits is quite wrong. What I do say is there are lots of other reasons lots of people go to food banks."  For Andrew Neil it must have felt like banging one's head against a brick wall.
There was nothing to provoke a headline until the end of the interview.  He was shown clips of various ministers saying that the "welfare" budget would have to be cut still further.  Where would those cuts fall?  Would you limit child benefit to two children, asked Neil, echoing something the hard right has been pushing lately.  IDS said he would certainly consider it.
We can rant and rage and heap abuse on this man.  But try to take a step back and consider what's going on.  Does Smith actually believe what he says?  Or does he know that he's lying and not care?  I suspect it's a bit more complicated.  We have a toxic combination of fixed ideology and grandiose self-delusion.  And it persists because his party loves it.  Who else could they find to do their dirty work for them with such enthusiasm?  Possibly Chris Grayling.  But all the other Tories who would do the job with gusto are even more stupid than Smith (think McVey, or Philip Davies or Alec Shelbrooke).  Those with ability tend to maintain a tiny morsel of compassion.  So IDS sails on.

The latest fantasy from Iain Duncan Smith

Wearily we have to notice the speech IDS was due to make today, which was trailed so exhaustively that there's no need to read it.  Yesterday's Telegraph naturally had the most sympathetic coverage.  Apparently the government is "matching economic recovery with social recovery", but "the economy will never fully recover unless families on benefits return to work".  That's the big problem for Smith.  His big plans have failed to get well over 2 million people back into work (or into work for the first time) and he takes it personally.  How dare they remain unemployed?  He has stated that "the way our benefits system is constructed" is responsible for the number of immigrants, coming to take the jobs British people refuse to take.  The Guardian gives more detail on the figures IDS will cite and they quote him: 
"When we took office, there were nearly five million people on out-of-work benefits. It was clear to me that in large part this situation was the product of a dysfunctional welfare system that often trapped those it was supposed to help in cycles of worklessness and dependency.  My one aim as work and pensions secretary has been to change this culture – and everything we have done, every programme we have introduced, has been about supporting everyone who is able to into work.  The scale of the change has been enormous – but we are delivering, and it is changing our country for the better."
If that makes you want to scream and throw things, I'm sorry.  That's the make-believe world that IDS lives in.  All those lives he's ruined; the trail of misery and destitution he's left; the lies about sanctions - they are nothing to him.  He was asked by a BBC reporter recently if he worried about cases of people suffering.  He said they made him "sad" and he wanted to understand them.  It was actually revealing.  These cases, these people, are not real to him.  They are shadows he can dismiss.
Policy Exchange, the Tory "think tank", has come up with some ways of slashing the income of the poorest even further.  One idea is to reduce the benefit cap, currently £26,000 pa, still further outside the south-east corner of the country.  IDS said, "We're not working on that," which doesn't rule it out for the future.  It's an acknowledgement that the biggest driver of high household benefits is rent; but it ignores the fact that there are people needing benefits in some high-cost areas outside London.  PE also wants to limit child benefits to 4 children.  That might get a sympathetic hearing; but it would significantly increase child poverty.
This is the message which the Tories will take into the election.  The out-of-work are wilfully unemployed and they are the cause of all society's ills.  But by making them suffer ever greater deprivation the Tories will persuade them to get a job.
I read an interesting piece recently (I've lost the link) which said that the only conclusion to be drawn from the puzzling employment statistics was that lots of people were working without paying tax.  They must be in very casual work or notional self-employment, or the deliberate black economy.  Yes.

Nothing works

Remember the Work Programme?  Of course you do.  But, like so much of what this government has done, the WP has been forgotten by most of the media; and its successor, "Help to Work", is just being ignored.

But the businesses contracted to deliver the WP have to plough on until 2016.  And A4e has resumed its practice of inviting MPs into their local offices to admire what they're doing.  Rob Wilson, Tory MP for Reading East, said, “I was very pleased to hear that A4e has seen a reduction in client numbers because of the success of the Work Programme getting people back into work and off benefits.  Clients are supported by A4e staff after starting work to help ensure they are able to manage in their job.  This extra support is essential to keep people in the new job.”  John Bercow, Tory MP for Buckingham (and Speaker of the Commons) was equally impressed by A4e's work in Milton Keynes.  Another cheer-leader is Dan Finn, Professor of Social Inclusion at Portsmouth University.  He's written a piece on Serco's own website asking, "Is it working?" and concluding that it is, with a few caveats.  And yet ....  Huge amounts of money have been spent on this, with very low targets which are not being met.  It was meant to solve unemployment and certainly hasn't.

So IDS came up with "Help to Work".  It was supposed, after a delay, to start yesterday, but there's another delay.  Could that be because of the difficulties in finding placements for all those sentenced to workfare?  There's a good piece on the Ekklesia website, and another on ThirdSector's site.  A growing number of voluntary organisations and local councils have signed up to a boycott of the scheme.  If they can't find placements with charities and councils the firms with the contracts will have to offer this free labour to private companies.  But, ostrich-like, "A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: 'Referrals to the placements have begun and the placements will begin shortly. There has been no delay.  Charities are under no obligation to be in the scheme, but those who are recognise the benefits of it.'"

Despite the fact that everything he has touched has turned to dross, Iain Duncan Smith believes it's all wonderful.  If you can stomach it, read his speech on welfare reform in Berlin.  And if we needed confirmation that IDS has a headlock on the BBC, it comes in the Express.  Talking about the Tories' promise of an EU referendum, "Iain Duncan Smith lashed out at the BBC for failing to give enough prominence to Mr Cameron’s promise of an in-out vote in 2017.  The Work and Pensions Secretary said 'most people' do not even know about the pledge.  A BBC spokeswoman said: 'We are satisfied that we have covered the EU referendum promise.'"

That interview

Like many people I've been mulling over that interview with Iain Duncan Smith yesterday.  If you didn't see it, it will still be available on iplayer.  I'm not going to go over the whole of it; there are good accounts on the Vox Political blog and the void bog.  While the interview was going out I was following (and contributing to) the Twitter storm, and the producers could have been in no doubt that people were very angry at his lies.
There was a stand-out moment for me, and it wasn't one of his factual inaccuracies.  It was when he was asked about the criticisms of Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the leader of his own church.  With the same supercilious expression that he'd worn throughout, IDS simply said, "He's wrong."
It's important to remember what the Archbishop actually said.  He didn't criticise the "reforms" in principle.  He deplored the fact that people were being left in destitution, left for weeks on end without any support, which he called a "disgrace".  His information, he said, came from the network of priests and charities in the poorest areas of the country.  "There must be something wrong with the administration of a system which has that effect on so many people's lives."  But IDS said, "He's wrong."  And he added that he wished the Archbishop had called him before saying all this.
The arrogance is breath-taking.  No doubt he would have told the man who is supposed to be in spiritual authority over him that all the reports from his priests and charities were ill-informed, that food banks were scaremongering, that the evidence of his own eyes and ears was an illusion.  There is no way through to this man.
I've been around a long time, and involved in politics for much of that time.  I lived through the Thatcher years, and loathed her as much as anyone.  I got disillusioned with Blair.  But this is something different.  This is a government which has entrusted its dirty work to a man who has neither the intelligence nor the insight to understand the consequences of his actions, and who has surrounded himself with people similarly bereft of humanity.  We have media which are either complicit or supine.  And I have no idea what we can do about it.

Don't bother asking IDS

You probably watched it.  That awful interview with Iain Duncan Smith on the Sunday Politics programme.  If so, your blood pressure might have settled down by now.
The producers had specifically asked for questions.  Of course, the majority were probably abusive and couldn't be used.  But plenty would not have been.  However, only one or two were used.  This was, as expected, more to do with Andrew Neil's questions.  It was too wide-ranging and there was no one on hand with the knowledge to challenge the torrent of lies and evasions.  Everybody is wrong except IDS.  The head of his church, Archbishop Nicholls, was wrong and should have called IDS before expressing an opinion.  I could go on, but what's the point?

Ask IDS

Sorry to keep doing this, but there's something else our regular readers need to know.
The Sunday Politics programme (BBC1, 11.00 am) have Iain Duncan Smith as the guest.  They are tweeting that they want questions for him - use the hashtag #askIDS
They will be deluged, so be succinct.

Round-up, 25 Jan 2014

I've been avoiding it.  All that publicity for IDS's speech made me want to head for the hills.  He compared himself to Wilberforce and Shaftesbury.  Well, not quite, but close enough that the journalists made that the story.  And we can be sure that he actually believes it.

I've pinched this brilliant bit of photoshopping from Twitter - Iain Duncan Smith as William Wilberforce.  Let's be clear what Wilberforce really did.  He was an MP who became the parliamentary voice for the movement to abolish the slave trade, and he succeeded in getting that through into law in 1807.  The abolition of slavery itself didn't come until 1833.  As for Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper 7th Earl of Shaftesbury); he was the driving force behind reforms to the laws which allowed child labour and appalling working conditions, and he was involved with many other reforms benefiting the working class.  Both men were evangelical Christians, believing that you couldn't save men's souls until they had decent lives.  IDS really does see himself in that tradition.  (The full text of his speech is here.)  Whenever people bring up evidence that, in so many cases, he is causing huge distress, he and his party literally don't want to know.  They never answer specifics, just repeat the generalities, because specific cases would destroy the picture they have of themselves.
Enough of IDS.  One piece of encouraging news did emerge this week.  Labour has said that it will axe the Work Programme if it gets elected.  (See the Northern Echo story.)  But only when the contracts come to an end.  It would cost far too much to terminate the contracts.  Labour plans to channel the money through local councils and Local Enterprise Partnerships - something I've advocated for a long time.  This will scare the likes of A4e, and will no doubt generate a great deal of lobbying.
And finally, the fall-out from Benefits Street goes on.  A number of people who have featured in the "show" have been arrested on charges of possessing drugs.  I can't, and shouldn't, comment on particular cases.  Anyone who is dealing drugs deserves all they get.  But I have many a time argued with people who bring up the supposedly luxurious lifestyles of those on benefits that anyone who can afford huge TVs, smartphones and foreign holidays must be either up to their eyes in debt or involved in criminality.  Sadly, this doesn't help to vindicate the vast majority of claimants.  I don't think we've heard the end of this noxious production.

Dragging on

There's nothing to report on the A4e front; no sign of the 2012/13 accounts, and no more information on what is obviously a precarious financial position.
I've bookmarked lots of articles featuring IDS and Benefits Street, which few people would want to read.  One I recommend, though, is by Mark Steel on the Independent's website.  It's titled:  We've had ‘Benefits Street’, so how about ‘Bonus street’? A gritty look at the grim reality of life with an unearned £2m windfall".  Or you could read Nick Cohen's piece in the Spectator, titled The Tories' hunger games. (But don't follow his link to Isabel Hardman's piece in the same magazine - The fight for compassionate Conservatism - unless you want to feel nauseous.)  It's indicative of the way the programme has polarised people.  For the Tories it continues to be splendid propaganda, not least for the drive to lower the benefits cap.  As the Daily Mail reports, a particularly nasty MP, Philip Davies, used it to feed IDS the line in a debate in parliament.  "Mr Duncan Smith also revealed he thought the controversial Channel 4 show Benefits Street was helping to win the argument for reform. The Tory minister said viewers were rightly 'shocked' by programmes such as Benefits Street and On Benefits and Proud, featuring people who spend their benefit money on luxuries such as cigarettes and wide-screen TVs, but that they had enabled the Government to force through measures, which he said would put an end to the abuse. Conservative MP Philip Davies said the documentaries will leave working people 'irritated' by the spending of those living on state handouts."  (Is that "compassionate Conservatism, Ms Hardman?)
For some constructive reading I recommend Guy Standing's book The Precariat, published by Bloomsbury in 2011.  It's an excellent analysis, from a sociologist's point of view, of the plight of growing numbers of people around the world, including many who read this blog.

That fraud case, a report and a couple of memos

First, there's an update on the court case against the nine former A4e employees charged with fraud.  They were in court again yesterday and have all been bailed to return for further hearings at the Crown Court, seven of them on 25 November and two on 3 February.

Second, there's a report out from the Manchester CAB, entitled Punishing Poverty?  A review of benefits sanctions and their impacts on clients and claimants.  It can be accessed from here.  It's packed with information which IDS, Freud and the rest should be compelled to read and answer questions on.  One interesting fact:- in 2009 the number of claimants sanctioned was 139,000, in line with previous years; by 2011 it had jumped to 508,000.  What the report doesn't mention is that we still haven't had the 2012 figures, and it's becoming ever clearer why not.  Other points to note include the fact that under Universal Credit the "hardship payments" when someone is being punished become effectively loans, to be repaid from any future benefits.  When did that little gem slip in?  There's really too much to summarise in the report, but it backs up what many of us have been saying for some time.

Third, there are a couple of what the DWP calls "live running memos" which are of interest.  One refers to changes and clarifications in provider guidance, and includes under "Raising a compliance doubt" the statement that "providers should be putting the contact details of the referring advisor on the WP08 referral."  How odd (or perhaps not) that some have been doing it anonymously.  The other memo is more serious in its implications, and can be found here.  There has been a vigorous campaign to persuade people to withhold their consent to data sharing by refusing to sign the consent form.  The aim, as the DWP recognises, is to prevent the WP provider from claiming a job outcome fee.  Not any more.  They have been pushing through the legal authority to contact employers without the client's permission.  They say it's "to improve the delivery of our interventions".  If you think you can still thwart this by not telling the Jobcentre where you're working, or even why you're signing off, I suspect the DWP can get the information through the tax office.  It's another instance of this government regarding data protection, or any other legal rights, as not applying to those dependent on benefits.

Weekend round-up

A4e was at all the party conferences this year, as usual.  They don't record what interest they drummed up amongst the Lib Dems or Labour, but describe on their website the "event" they hosted in Manchester for the Tories.  They've had to amend the story in the last couple of days - it was "former minister" Mark Hoban who led the praise for 6 A4e "customers" (I do hate that word) who have found jobs through the WP.  Apparently 40 people turned up.  Now, as I've always said, I'm happy for anybody who gets work, with or without the help of A4e.  But it seems slightly over-optimistic for A4e to be lobbying just at the point when they've lost market share for getting poor results.

There was a little-noticed piece on the BBC website yesterday about the poor quality of prison education.  Ofsted has been very critical about current standards, and it's pointed out that prison education and training is outsourced to private companies.  No companies are named, but A4e has several contracts.

BBC Radio 4's "The Report" programme last night looked at the state of Universal Credit.  There was nothing which hadn't already been in the press, but the programme pulled it all together to show how the project went off the rails.  Around £200m has been completely wasted, there are no effective financial controls, and there is no chance that it will come in "on time and on budget", as IDS insists it will.  UC is being rolled out to 6 more jobcentres, but it's still limited to new claims by single people with no dependants, on JSA only and with no complications.  It was pointed out that you can't do a change of circumstances, or even sign off, online.  You have to phone an 0845 number, at your own expense.  The whole thing is supposed to be completed by 2017, but as the reporter said, whether IDS would still be in post by then is doubtful.

That dismal excuse for a newspaper, the Express, gleefully reported a survey which purports to show that a majority of people think that benefits claimants "should find a job or work harder".  Surprisingly, a lot of the comments under the article are not supportive of the Express's stance.  For the actual figures, read a better article on a website here.  But all such polls are suspect.  We don't know the sample size, but we do know that sampling methods tend to exclude the poorest people, and that would certainly skew the results here.  Of course, the government is jubilant, and Labour is flummoxed about how to respond.

Figures

The latest batch of Work Programme statistics is due for release on Thursday, 26 September.  I don't expect anything startling.  And I don't expect the media to take an interest.  The significant numbers will be the outcomes for the long-term jobless, and the "sustainment" payments.  The latter will give an indication of whether providers can cope financially with the contracts.  Comparisons between providers also matter.  We can expect the headline, from both the DWP and the ERSA, to be raw numbers, which tell us nothing.

There's another important set of figures which the government has obviously decided to bury - the data on sanctions.  They were due out last May but the DWP waffled about quality issues with the data.  Then there were indications that the delay might be down to the hiatus caused by the high court ruling and the need to legalise what had been declared illegal.  Then there was a hint that an announcement would be made in August.  Still nothing.  But we do have an announcement that there will be "an independent review of benefit sanctions".  Don't get your hopes up.  This is only to look at the "clarity of information" given to JSA claimants about the process.  It's to be carried out by a think-tanker, a theorist called Matthew Oakley.  I wonder if he will talk to anyone who has been punished.  A comment by Mark Hoban is insulting: "It is important that Jobseekers know exactly what is expected of them when they apply for Jobseeker's Allowance, and that they risk having their benefits sanctioned if they fail to play by the rules." [My italics]  Perhaps it's a game to you, Mr Hoban, but not to those who suddenly find themselves penniless.  There is so much about this regime that should be examined by a qualified independent person.  He might, for instance, consider a story in Sunday's Observer which shows that one in three homeless people on JSA have been penalised, compared to about 3% of jobseekers overall.  But this review is simply a cosmetic exercise.

That last story, the Observer article, ends in the now familiar way, with a quote from that shadowy figure, the DWP spokesman.  This person always makes political statements of dubious accuracy, but is never named.  Is this a civil servant doing his master's bidding?  Or a political aide to whom IDS has passed the buck?  Either way, if the journalists can't get a comment directly from those responsible, i.e. the politicians, they should refuse to publish this anonymous nonsense.

The shambles that is Universal Credit

I really have nothing much to say.  Iain Duncan Smith has been all over the news today because of the National Audit Office's report into how Universal Credit is going, and we've said it all on here before.  The only thing which strikes me is how keen IDS has been to blame everybody except himself.  Mainly, it's been the civil servants being made to carry the can.
I know people want to comment on all this, so go ahead.  But don't go overboard.

Iain Duncan Smith - true to form

I thought we might get an IDS-free day today, but still the media keep coming up with depressing pieces.  I've bookmarked so many that I can't possibly post links to them, and you wouldn't want to read them anyway.  When I listened to the interview yesterday on the Today programme, I was hoping that John Humphrys would challenge him over his misuse of figures - and he did.  But that brought the extraordinary conversation, recorded in the Huffington Post: 

  '"What they said was you can't absolutely prove that those two things are connected."  Challenged over the fact his statement was not supported by officials statistics published by his own department, Duncan Smith said: "Yes, but by the way, you can't disprove what I said either.  I believe that this to be right, I believe that we are already seeing people going back to work who were not going to go back to work," he said.  "I believe that this will show, as we move forward, that people who were not seeking work are now seeking work."'

Of course, lots of people picked that up and mocked it.  Another assertion, quickly picked up by the New Statesman, was that homelessness figures had "hardly moved".  Actually, homelessness in England is up by 27% since 2010.  The New Statesman published an excellent piece, "Five things Iain Duncan Smith doesn't want you to know about the benefit cap" - essential reading.
Something which went unchallenged was the assertion, or implication, that people can go out and get a job if they want one.
It was inevitable that the interview would result in a complaint from IDS about the BBC.  He said to Humphrys, "This is absurd. What you are doing, as always happens in the BBC, is seeking out lots of little cases from people who are politically motivated to say this is wrong.”
My final link is to a Steve Bell cartoon in the Guardian.

Labour had little to say.  And that's because they support the benefit cap, and know that a large majority of the electorate support it too.  No minds were changed yesterday, but what I found most worrying was that so many people on the ideological right were content to churn out statements which they know to be untrue or highly misleading.  
And the Tories feel that they're on a roll, and can put forward further "reforms".  We're hearing today about a reduction in the cap to £20k, if it's shown to "work"; stopping housing benefit to the under-25s; and denying housing to teenage single mothers.

  

IDS in bother again

It's another bad patch for Iain Duncan Smith.  Those pesky judges in the Upper Tribunal have ruled that the Work Capability Assessment, which tests whether people are fit for employment, is inadequate when it comes to people with certain mental conditions, like autism, which mean they lack insight.  It puts them at a substantial disadvantage when trying to navigate the process.  Under the present system the claimants are expected to put together the medical evidence themselves, but the lawyers argued that it should be the government's responsibility.  Now, a reasonable response to this ruling, you would think, would be a statement that the DWP accepts it and will put things right.  But not the DWP.  The Huffington Post publishes the tweets from the DWP press office: "We disagree with today's ruling...".  So they'll appeal and stall.
IDS can avoid personal responsibility for that one, but not for the "misuse" of statistics recently.  Now we learn that he is to be "grilled" (not literally, sadly) by the Work & Pensions Select Committee as they "examine the way DWP releases benefit statistics to the media".  For a summary, see the New Statesman article here.  Should be interesting.