Everybody Should Watch MP Glenda Jackson Chew Up Ian Duncan Smith

[ttosca]

It might not have been the most packed House of Commons audience Labour MP Glenda Jackson has ever had, but there was only one person she was aiming her scathing speech at, and that was the Secretary of State for Work And Pensions, slouched on the bench opposite, with a smug grin on his face.


Discussing the performance of Ian Duncan Smith, his Department of Work and Pensions, and the much maligned firm ATOS carrying out capability to work assessments on the disabled, Glenda Jackson stood up and immediately launched into the 'incompetent' Secretary of State.


“We have all become used to the Secretary of State avoiding any direct question,” began the Labour MP, and she slammed the Conservative minister for “the destruction of the welfare state and the utter incompetence of his department” that he has presided over.


“They found it really, really funny that we have seen this explosion of foodbanks,” Jackson railed at the government bench, talking about how many people with jobs have to turn to foodbanks for help.


Then the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, turned to the constant scandals of people with disabilities who have been assessed fit to work by multinational private contractor ASOS: "48 % of appeals are upheld. We are seeing people on ESA (the benefit that has replaced incapacity benefit) who are waiting months before their appeals would be heard. And during that period they are either told to apply for job seekers allowance - which they cannot do because they have been told they are unfit for work - and they are absolutely without any financial support at all.“


As Ian Duncan Smith sat back and grinned, Jackson got even more wound up, railling:


“We are looking at a welfare state which was created to protect people from actually falling through the cracks. What this particular secretary of state, what this particular department is doing, is pushing people between the cracks. And hoping that the rest of the country won’t notice that they’ve disappeared."


Watch Glenda Jackson tear Ian Duncan Smith a new one:

neonnettle.com/news/760-everybody-should-watch-mp-glenda-jackson-chew-up-ian-duncan-smith-

[CarolineWheatley]

But she's powerless to change his actions isn't she?

[Oodlives]

About time Labour did show some signs of life. This government have been so easy to pick holes in and Labour just watch.

[Icimoi]

Duncan Smith really is utterly despicable. He was probably grinning as a defence mechanism, because he knows he doesn't have any valid answer to these accusations. Good for Glenda.

[MrsStatham]

There is no money.
There is no money thanks to the Labour Party.
There is no money thanks to the fiscal incompetence of the Labour party and especially Gordon Brown who pompously declared an end to boom and bust and sold billions and billions of pounds worth of Gold AFTER informing the market of his intention to do so.

I'm not paying a penny more in tax to plug their inept handling of the economy and not tackling the problems properly back when they had the opportunity to do so.

[ttosca]

Dear MrsStatham-

The 2008 recession was caused by the financial crisis, which was global. Labour are not responsible for the global financial crisis.

New Labour were responsible insofar as they continued the same neo-liberal policies which have dominated Western governments since the late 1970s. These policies include financial deregulation, privitisation of public services and key industries:

www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376

Your rant has nothing to do with Ian Duncan Smith or his monumental incompetence or psychopathy.

His blundering of Universal Credit hasn't even begun, and it is costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds.

---
The government’s flagship benefits overhaul is costing £225,000 per person to introduce, new figures show.

The much-delayed Universal Credit combining six benefits into one has so far cost £612million.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2552850/Delays-Universal-Credit-mean-far-cost-225-000-EACH-person-new-benefits-system.html

[SevenZarkSeven]

There was a report from ciziens advice scotland today which is pertinent to this thread I think - about the boom in the number of people having benefits sanctions applied:

here

From the BBCpiece:

""It highlights the case of a man in the east of Scotland who had his benefits reduced to about £11 a week after sanctions were applied when he failed to attend an interview with a work programme despite producing a doctor's certificate to say he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was not fit to travel."

[ttosca]

Yes, DWP are being put under pressure to meet sanctions targets - except they don't call them targets, they call them 'expectations'.

[ttosca]

DWP staff.

[SevenZarkSeven]

The increase in the number of sanctions being applied indicates that something is happening.

The responses to these types of reports (and there have been so many of them - ATOS & disability benefit / this from CAS / food banks etc etc etc) from the DWP always disturb me. This one seems very cold as well given the examples (I am sure there will be more in there like the one above). "They can always appeal" seems terribly harsh when people are getting the income stopped unexpectedly, without warning and for reasons they don't understand.

[ttosca]

And, in fact, almost half of all appeals are successful.

So obviously they're not applying sanctions reasonably.

[SevenZarkSeven]

Yes and it's higher than that I think with people who appeal against decisions around disability benefits IIRC (to be fair I may not remember correctly, at my age ).

Basically the whole thing is an exemplary display of bastard scumbaggery but what do you expect from the tories

[TucsonGirl]

Labour are responsible for the effects that the "GLOBAL" financial crisis had on THIS COUNTRY, you know, the country that they were in charge of for 13 years. IF they aren't responsible, then they should be rounded up and shot, because they were certainly pocketing enough of our money over those years.

It doesn't matter what language Glenda Jackson uses, if they don't have the money to pay benefits, they can't be paid. Call it "mean", "evil", "heartless", or whatever, it's irrelevent. Talk about "tax the rich more", fine. Do that, and THEN pay it out on benefits. Don't do it the other way round and then act shocked when people aren't obediently handing over as much as you want them to when they can see where it's all going.

[ttosca]

TucsonGirl-

There is no need to put 'GLOBAL' in quotation marks. That the financial crisis was global is not a matter of controversy or dispute.

Firstly, financial deregulation which allowed the crisis to happen has been going on for about 30 years. The UK was especially prone to be hit hard because a) A large part government revenue comes from the financial sector in London - this is something which governments think they should be proud of... and b) Because all governments have encouraged further and further financialisation of the economy and deregulation of the financial sector.

It doesn't matter what language Glenda Jackson uses, if they don't have the money to pay benefits, they can't be paid. Call it "mean", "evil", "heartless", or whatever, it's irrelevent.

Firstly, there is enough money to pay for social security for jobseekers. Jobseekers allowance is a small percentage of the social security bill.

Secondly, the majority of the social security bill pays for pensions. Of the remaining part, the majority of that part goes to people who are in work.

If you would like to cut down on the social security bill, then you should insist that employers pay a fair wage, so that the government doesn't have to subsidise wages so people can survive and keep the economy chugging along.

[BenevolentVole]

I thought she was awesome. I can't imagine what it's like to sit opposite those self satisfied millionaires every day and see them laughing about benefit cuts . (They had been laughing earlier which she referred to in her speech) No wonder she was angry! Whether you agree with what she said or not, it must be a good thing to have someone actually providing a proper opposition at last!

[Icimoi]

So, TucsonGirl and MrsStatham, how do you justify supposed cuts such as the bedroom tax which actually cost more money than they save?

It really doesn't work to say "they don't have the money to pay benefits" when they apparently do have the money to allow large scale tax evasion to go on without lifting a finger to stop it because their friends benefit most from it

[MaryBennett]

Icimoi, I agree completely. The old boys network rolls on, making sure they protect themselves.

And respect to Glenda Jackson whose fluency and eloquence are fuelled by anger at the treatment of the poor and the vulnerable.