Is there a more odious scoundrel in the UK than Iain Duncan Smith?

Mick Hall with a piece on the Tory Iain Duncan Smith from his own blog Organised Rage. It first featured on the 29th October 2012.

Is there a more odious man in the UK than Iain Duncan Smith, he spent the years leading up to the 2010 general election touring the country masquerading as a Christian friend of the poor.

Yet once he gained office as Secretary of State for Works and Pensions he has been on a ‘mission’ to torment, smear and further impoverish them. Taring them as workshy, irresponsible and immoral. He is without doubt the most hypocritical government minister for decades, his language is Dickensian in tone. He has gone out of this way to drive a wedge between the majority of the British people and the most marginalised and disadvantaged section of society.

Take his latest 19th century wheeze, targeting families with more than two children for benefit cuts. Last week Smith said: 'Parents on benefits who have more than two children could be penalised as part of the government drive to find further cuts in welfare benefits.'

He made it clear he regards such parents as having engaged in “destructive behaviour,” never mind he himself has four children of his own. As a wealthy man he clearly sees this as his right, he gives not a thought to the family which also has four kids but has fallen on hard time due to ill health or unemployment. His hatred for the Welfare State is absolute, not least because it gives protection from need for all citizens not just those like Smith who have a full bank account.

The hypocrisy of Smith is shocking although given his history hardly surprising, whilst he cuts the benefits of the less well off economically, he canoodles with tax exiles and billionaires, and is one of the main beneficiaries of his governments largess. While he literally steals the bread from the mouths of babes, he has had forty thousand pounds dropped into his pocket thanks to the Coalition governments cut to the top rate of tax.

Duncan-Smith is strong on the Victorian notions of the deserving and undeserving poor, which goes to show what a deceitful liar he is, for he must know six out of ten of children whose parents claim benefits are living with a working parent, yet he makes no mention of that, instead he uses the ‘underclass card’ to insult and belittle people who during difficult times are doing their best to make their way in life.

Bridget Robb, acting chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, talking to the Huffington Post pointed out:

Far from the workshy stereotype; many families are forced to claim benefits because of the impact of the recession ... Political rhetoric is frequently targeting the poorest and mostvulnerable. The traditional working class, without work, are increasingly being described by politicians almost as if they have no place in our society.

Bridget continues:

Where is the government's evidence base for claiming that people are deliberately having children in order to claim more benefits? Conservatives may be seeing their stance as a potential vote winner, but it simply is not a picture that we recognise. Our members are seeing more and more children and families sliding into poverty, and all more cuts will do is put more strain on public services that are already at breaking point. This is yet another attack on low income families, and it will be the children who will bear the brunt of it. All this policy will do is punish children for being born.

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 20: Work and Pensio...

The I'm ever so humble Iain Duncan Smith

When IDS talks of people 'cutting their cloth' according to their circumstances, he forgets that many people will have planned their families before the recession, when they could afford them, and will be no longer able to afford them without state assistance when they have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. What are such families supposed to do with these 'extra' children now?

What indeed, if it were a leading Chinese or Iranian politician suggesting parents with more than two children should be penalised, there would rightly have been a national media outcry. But this coalition government have none its work well, with Duncan Smith to the fore, sneering and jeering at some of the most economically disadvantaged people in the UK, and making massive and unnecessary cuts to their housing and welfare benefits, as the government attempt to turn the clock back to a 19th century type society, in which a minority of wealthy people live high on the hog, the majority struggle to get by, whilst the poorest go to the wall.

Woe betide any youngster who is born into a large family if Smith continues to get his way, it’s the undeserving poor all over again. Which sums up the topsy-turvy Coalition-land we live in. One only has to look around to know this government has got it arse up, it’s the undeserving rich who need tackling and made to pay their fair share. However we get not a word from Duncan Smith on this, and it does not take a rocket scientist to understand why.

He along with the rest of the Coalition government are engaged in an ideological crusade against the Welfare State and the post war settlement which has served the people well. Never mind, beyond the political, media, and business elites, there is little faith left in the Thatcherite free market experiment which has taken place over the last 30 years. Far from seeing it as a painful but necessary corrective as the ruling elites still do, most people now regard it as an unmitigating disaster. But not the likes of Cameron, Clegg and Duncan Smith, despite having no democratic mandate, before they leave office they intend to bring as much of that post war settlement down, in the hope it will never be rebuilt and in the process they will bring misery and despair into millions of peoples lives.

Make no mistake as Barbara Allen correctly pointed out in in the Observer:

Deep down, Duncan Smith must understand that no one in their right mind longs for a lifetime on benefits. He must also realise that people can't see into the future to ensure they can always afford their children. Just like everyone else, he has access to statistics that prove that very few parents would ever plot towards such an existence.

As I asked at the top of this piece:

Is their a more odious scoundrel in the UK than Iain Duncan Smith?