Iain Duncan Smith to simplify all his cock-ups into one Universal Cock-Up

[ttosca]

‘The current system of cock-ups is complicated and confusing,’ said the Work and Pensions Secretary. ‘Even I have trouble keeping track of them all. That’s why I have decided to create a new system to unify all my cock-ups into one monumental cock-up – something that everyone can understand’.

The Universal Cock-Up will cost an estimated £2bn to implement and is due to be rolled out next year. However, given that it is being organised by Mr Duncan Smith, experts say it is more likely to cost £200bn and never happen at all.

The new system will create an extensive database of all Iain Duncan Smith’s failures: departmental mismanagement, making up statistics, cruel treatment of benefit claimants with disabilities, illegally forcing people to work in Poundland, a jobs website that hosts fake jobs, and once writing a really terrible novel.

‘I have every confidence that the Universal Cock-Up will be delivered on time and on budget,’ said Mr Duncan Smith. ‘I have already commissioned the very latest state-of-the-art IT system to run it: a Sinclair ZX 81. Nothing can possibly go wrong, although admittedly we are having some teething troubles getting the cassette player to load the software.’

Mr Duncan Smith has also arranged for himself to be constantly monitored by Atos, who will conduct a continuous assessment of his inability to do the job properly and ensure that he is always doing everything he possibly can to do everything possibly wrong.

The Universal Cock-Up is already being heralded as one of the government’s flagship policies. If the scheme is a success, it may be extended to all government departments, although Michael Gove has insisted on keeping his pet project of taxpayer funded ‘free cock-ups’.

Mr Duncan Smith rejected claims that the whole thing was yet another failure waiting to happen for which he would refuse to accept responsibility. ‘I am sick and tired of this constant culture of blame,’ he told reporters, ‘and it’s all YOUR fault.’

www.newsbiscuit.com/2014/03/24/iain-duncan-smith-to-simplify-all-his-cock-ups-into-one-universal-cock-up/

[napoleonsnose]

Pretty much sums IDS up really. A monumental fucker upper of cocktastic proportions!

[Isitmebut]

Unfortunately an example of implementing long overdue reforms to a welfare/benefit system that grew to unsustainable heights, during the Brown ‘boom’, from the Labour ‘money tree’, where taxpayers money was thrown at everything, to ‘improve’ it – but inevitably proves to be as sustainable and useful as Red Oak disease.

‘Wood’ it have been better if Duncan Smith have inherited a lean, streamline and effective department that for 13-years didn’t promote welfare dependency, a system that made it less attractive to work, full of abuse where an East European can have multi names claims but those individuals that deserved it struggled with one claim, where 900,000 appear to have been claiming sickness benefits that stopped when asked to have a medical – a general and typical Labour’s horses ar$e of Labour inefficiency and neglect as custodians of taxpayers money.

So after years of welfare/benefits neglect, the Universal Credits project designed to both try and make things better & easier to claim has struggled – but that doesn’t mean that they are wrong to do it, or Labour would reverse them and cut benefits less.

“Labour to substantially cut benefits bill if it wins power in 2015”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/21/labour-to-cut-benefits-bill-2015
"Labour will cut the benefits bill "quite substantially" and more effectively than the Tories if it wins power in 2015, the shadow work and pensions secretary said on Tuesday."

“Liam Byrne, a Labour frontbencher, said the coalition's welfare reforms were failing to cut costs enough, and called for cross-party talks to "save" some of the government's key schemes.”

“However, he signalled Labour wants to get universal credit and other major schemes back on track, rather than scrap them altogether.”


I wonder if YOU will still be bitching on here when Labour cuts benefits "quite substantially" and "more effectively" than the Conservative led coalition?

[ttosca]

isitmebut-

Unfortunately an example of implementing long overdue reforms to a welfare/benefit system that grew to unsustainable heights, during the Brown ‘boom’, from the Labour ‘money tree’, where taxpayers money was thrown at everything, to ‘improve’ it – but inevitably proves to be as sustainable and useful as Red Oak disease.

It didn't:

Think welfare spending is spiralling out of control? You're wrong

Britain's welfare spending is actually about average, while claims that it is wasteful should be seriously challenged

--

The British, having supposedly invented the modern welfare state (a debatable proposition), have the mistaken notion that they have an exceptionally generous welfare state, as evidenced by the widespread worries about "welfare scrounging" and "welfare tourism". However, measured by public social spending (eg income support, pensions, health) as a proportion of GDP, Britain's is not much bigger than the OECD average; 24.1% against 22.1% as of 2009. And the OECD includes among its 34 members a dozen or so relatively poor economies – Mexico, Chile, Turkey, Estonia and Slovakia, for example – where the welfare state is much smaller for various reasons (eg younger population, weaker parties of the left).

Even when it comes to income support for the working-age population – the element targeted by the new bill – the UK is not a particularly generous place. In 2007 it spent 4.5% of GDP for the purpose. This was only slightly above the OECD average (3.9%) and way below other rich European economies: the figures were 7.2% for Belgium, 7% for Denmark, 6% for Finland and 5.6% for Sweden.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/28/welfare-spending-spiralling-out-of-control-wrong

======

So after years of welfare/benefits neglect, the Universal Credits project designed to both try and make things better & easier to claim has struggled – but that doesn’t mean that they are wrong to do it, or Labour would reverse them and cut benefits less.

No, it's IDS' welfare reforms are designed to push people off of welfare, even when they are rightly entitled to claim, and even when they are unable to work - as evidenced by the tens of thousands of disabled people who have been killed by these 'reforms'.

“Labour to substantially cut benefits bill if it wins power in 2015”

Thanks for re-enforcing my point, the three main parties are all neo-liberal parties, pushing an outdated, economically and socially destructive ideology which makes the rich richer, the middle-class poorer, and the poor dead or starving.

I wonder if YOU will still be bitching on here when Labour cuts benefits "quite substantially" and "more effectively" than the Conservative led coalition?

Of course. I bitched substantially all throughout the New Labour years against New Labours neo-liberalism, social authoritarianism, and illegal wars.

=======

PS: You should treat your readers with respect and stop lying to and misleading them.

[Isitmebut]

ttosca….why on Dave’s former green earth are you trying to justify unfettered welfare/benefit growth, (that even the Labour Party acknowledged needed reform), with international GDP figures, are you Gordon Brown in disguise – how long have you been getting away with this shite on here to fool readers?????

How would GDP figures give true comparisons when economies are structured very differently ,…whether a government is high spending & profligate.….the different types & levels of benefits/welfare, if available at all…...when international employment and unemployment rates are so different……..whether s country treasonably allows in a huge migrant work force getting jobs & boosting growth, while leaving domestic workers claiming benefits etc etc etc.

A country’s GDP can clearly be distorted for political reasons and disguise an economy is being built on high spending and debt, as the UK’s economy was under Gordon Brown, as shown below.

Gross Domestic Product – Basic Definition.
www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp

Private Consumption/Spending + Government Spending + Business capital Spending + Net Exports (Exports – Imports).

GDP Under Labour
Massive Consumer spending/debt + Massive Government annual Spending up 50% in seven years + limited capital spending e.g. manufacturing fell from 22% of our economy to 11% + Net Exports rubbish due to an unbalanced economy.

No Conservative would come into politics to push anyone off of welfare/benefits that was entitled to them, and to claim otherwise is contemptible class warrior stupidity dating back decades.

Only a socialist dinosaur would not see that an unreformed benefit/welfare system, that encouraged unemployment, especially where generations of families have not seen one member in work as ‘a way of life’, while encouraging a few million migrants here that miraculously found jobs, was socially and economically sustainable.

Joined-up-policies were needed to reduce immigration, create private sector jobs, ensure it did not pay to take benefits over jobs thus building work experience/ethic, and try to make benefits/welfare claims easier for those that need them – and Labour are only looking at it now, as the Coalition had the political guts to take it on.

There is no comparison in the policies of a pro fat, inefficient State, raising taxes after elections, no clue how to build a strong Private Sector Labour Party, and the Conservatives – so poke your ‘neo’ labels where the sun don’t shine.

[ttosca]

isitmebut-

ttosca….why on Dave’s former green earth are you trying to justify unfettered welfare/benefit growth, (that even the Labour Party acknowledged needed reform), with international GDP figures, are you Gordon Brown in disguise – how long have you been getting away with this shite on here to fool readers?????

How would GDP figures give true comparisons when economies are structured very differently ,…whether a government is high spending & profligate.….the different types & levels of benefits/welfare, if available at all…...when international employment and unemployment rates are so different……..whether s country treasonably allows in a huge migrant work force getting jobs & boosting growth, while leaving domestic workers claiming benefits etc etc etc.

This isn't an argument. You tried to make this silly argument in another thread as well.

In fact, it makes a point opposite to the one you intended. The diversity of expenditure and economic make up of different countries in europe only highlights the fact that social security expenditure in the UK in average across a range of economies.

Secondly, social security is a somewhat inelastic demand. It is true that welfare rises during a recession, etc. But there will always be a need for healthcare, education, roads, fire, ambulance, and police service, etc.

There is no reason the UK should be considered 'exceptional' within the context of the european states - why should it? Do British citizens need to eat less? Are they less prone to sickness and accidents?

[Isitmebut]

ttosca….I won’t spend too much time on this because as usual you chose to miss the point.

Although I can understand why, as it was much of THE REVENUE that was built on sand; City investment banking profits growth, excessive commercial bank balance sheet growth = consumer debt spending, Housing Stamp Tax that was around £700 million in 1997 became £7 billion due to Stamp Tax and house price rises, the tax revenue counted in from 1 million 100% tax payer funded new public sector jobs that did not exist in 1997 – are you SERIOUSLY not seeing the Ponzi Scheme problem with those unsustainable revenue flows?

As for spending those flakey revenues, the 7% annual real term increase in ministerial spending was unprecedented in Europe, as was the growth in our benefits/welfare bill versus Europe, during the Brown ‘boom’.

Europe had a diversity in annual REVENUES that generally did not include all those dodgy UK revenue streams mentioned above HENCE the main European economies did not LOSE repeat LOSE around 7% of output/GDP in 2008, OR have an annual Budget Deficit the size of ours. Their economies slowed later, when the financial recession became an economic one – whereas we has a double whammy.

[ttosca]

The UK was hit particularly hard by the financial crisis because we have the largest financial sector in europe, and a great deal of our tax revenue and many of our city jobs are related to finanace.

This is a different point from social security spending, which is rightly comparable to other european countries.

And yes, much of the pre-crisis economy was a ponzi scheme. Most of it is the fault of the banks, creating money out of nothing through financial schemes and offering, even pushing (I remember being approached quite aggressively by my bank) credit because they knew they could easily repackage and resell the debt.

We're currently experiencing another housing bubble, where house prices are being overinflated, and people are taking out loans against their house. This is going to end in disaster, again.

The problem is that for the past few decades, the cost of living has increased, whilst wages have remained stagnant, even though productivity has increased.

The only way to keep the economy going (temporarily) like this is through credit. That's why every UK household is thousands of pounds in debt. Without credit, the economy would grind to a halt.

The solution, of course, is to ensure that people are paid a fair and living wage and to keep rents and racketeering Capitalists under control - but I doubt that's something you support, given your pushing of 18th Century 'invisible hand of the market' ideology, which, in reality, is just another name for Mafia Capitalism.

[Isitmebut]

ttosca….we have had investment banking and ever increasing taxes coming into the UK for around 40-years, so the financial services ‘effect’ on unbalancing an economy is not new: the problem is if you BUILD an economy/spending on the spectacular and unsustainable GROWTH of every revenue stream I mentioned in my previous post, from 1997.

Brown thought he cracked the secret of a perpetual welfare state, why do you think he said that he had ‘cured booms and busts’?

The man was not given to Blair like exaggerations; he really thought it was sustainable, as even a mild ECONOMIC recession did not affect the City investment banking profits of old, but he never calculated on the first FINANCIAL recession in 80-years, which led to the worst ECONOMIC recession in 80-years.

As I’ve posted before, the UK lost 1 million manufacturing jobs from 1997 to 2005, partly due to the strength of the pound, but a Labour government didn’t seem to care or need manufacturing anymore, so manufacturing as a percentage of our economy that stayed around 22-23% from 1979 to 1997, fell to 11% by 2010.
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.htmll

Re rip-off-Britain, you are correct that is not new, but an economy can only get sustainable employment and wage increases, via a vibrant Private Sector, where there are more jobs and pay rates can rise depending on the job – which also helps pay for the public sector and sustainable welfare.

Brown’s UK economy, basically built on the proceeds of increased speculation from 1997, was an economic model destined to come unstuck.

And a Public Sector that became over 50% of the economy helped DRAIN money from the rich and poor alike, as with cost of living pressures, how could Labour justify a Council Tax rise of over 110% over 13-years, a huge drain on the budgets of the poorer people in society. At least that ever increasing cost has been frozen for this parliament.

[ttosca]

So tedious. If I talked about rice, you would find a way of blaming Brown/Labour.

[Isitmebut]

Don’t be silly, we didn’t have any stocks of rice for Mr Brown to sell in desperation.

Living within this country’s means and what went wrong from 1997 to 2010 will always be “tedious” to ‘the Labour cause’, which transcends the practicalities of financing, as there is always the prospects of higher and higher taxation.

But to the rest of us, we’d call it incompetence as we and our children, and our children’s children, will one way or another have to PAY OFF the debt thanks to Mr Brown increasing long term national spending by an unprecedented 50% in several years, mainly funded by the unsustainable proceeds of debt and speculation.

[ttosca]

Q.E.D.

[PigletJohn]

He is not Mr Duncan Smith, he is Mr Smith, same as his father.

Using the middle name is just his pretentious affectation.

Kermit is not Mr The Frog.

[Isitmebut]

Does Mr Frog want a government job, as he's getting more current air time than the Prime Minister and more popular than the lot of them put together.