Speaking at Centre for Social Justice, Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions repeated his vision/mantra for our new World of Welfare whilst papering over the, now rather large, cracks which have appeared on the horizon
He paints a vision of
“..neighbourhoods blighted by worklessness... where gangs were prevalent, debt and drugs the norm... families broken down... those living there had one thing in common; they were for the most part dependent on the state for their daily needs.”
In short he sees a country where most are middle class and the rest are part of some ghetto. He is helped in this vision by the current success of Channel 4’s “Benefits Street”, itself accused of bias and of conveniently ignoring those who are actually working who live in the street.
He talks of a failed welfare system, which will be replaced by Universal Credit, itself fast becoming a very expensive and poorly managed white elephant, which will take years to introduce.
He discusses the merits of the spare room subsidy, which now all call the bedroom tax.
“For too long, we have been content to subsidise people on Housing Benefit living in homes in the UK which had a million spare bedrooms... taking money from taxpayers, many themselves making difficult decisions about where they can afford to live.”
In advocating this he fails to mention that the benefits system subsidises private owners with spare bedrooms, owners who will later be able to sell these homes at a handsome profit.
He fails to explain the anomaly of Council Tax discounts for disabled people who need a room to store equipment but who are then penalised under the Housing Benefit system.
He talks of the waste of human potential and sees work as the only solution out of poverty which is little comfort for those unable to work or those whose work opportunities are limited because they are providing care and as a result saving the taxpayer millions.
And for good measure he has a dig at migrant workers.
So if you want more of the same old, same old read his speech here.