The lies that wouldn’t fool a child, only adults

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,159

Sunday 26 July 2015.

Dear Mr Cameron,

It is astonishing that Iain Duncan Smith can justify savaging our entire system of social security based on the reaction of people watching poverty porn on television and yet completely ignore the ever growing public outcry against the reality of his brutality and the consequences of his vicious policies.

Do we really need an inquiry to discover that denying people the means of survival will cause hardship and death? It is unquestionable that in a country like the UK, money is the almost exclusive means of survival with extremely rare exceptions. There is no alternative or easy opt out to our entire structural dependence on money and it is that very structural dependency that makes money the perfect ideological weapon for Smith to use and abuse. It doesn’t take more than a moments thought to realise this is self evidently true.

Ah, but these are the times and these are the days of extravagant lies dished out by those entrusted to faithfully serve the nation yet who have abandoned the duty of care for those who most need it.

Iain Duncan Smith is about to rewrite the definition of poverty and, indeed, eradicate the word ‘poverty’ in favour of the utterly meaningless ‘life chances’. And he must, of course, he must do everything in his power to disguise his plans in an ever growing web of deceit.

Smith repeats himself ad nauseam that there is no link between sanctions and hardship and the catastrophic rise in food bank use, echoed by his latest attack dog, Priti Patel, just as he maintains, ‘It’s irresponsible to suggest a causal link between the death of an individual and their benefit claim’. If you stop someone’s income with no other available means of support that person is in hardship. It’s not rocket science, it is something that would be self evident to a child yet seems to be beyond the grasp of grown adults. This is all being done in the name of ‘Austerity’ about which you told those who oppose it to ‘Stop bleating about austerity’. People are roaring and snarling, not bleating, as you give tax breaks to the rich and corporations and load the nations debt on the poor, as Osborne so succinctly put it in his emergency budget speech, ‘So those who oppose any savings to Tax Credits will have to explain how on earth they propose to eliminate the deficit’.

How else indeed? That’s what austerity is all about, the poor must pay because no other bugger is going to. You’re making damned sure of that.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/benefits-street-iain-duncan-smith-3019449

http://www.welfareweekly.com/benefit-claimants-should-not-be-forced-to-live-in-fear/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/25/benefit-sanctions-regime-should-be-scrapped-independent-review

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/24/independent-review-benefit-sanctions-urgently-needed-say-mps

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2009/oct/28/live-without-money

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2015-2016/0051/en/16051en02.htm

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/tory-minister-denies-sanctions-force-people-to-foodbanks