If Iain Duncan Smith gives any more interviews, Jeffrey Archer will be in serious danger of losing his crown as the most dishonest politician to set foot inside a Tory cabinet.
Yesterday the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph all gleefully promoted his “Social Justice Report” where he claims that:
“Around 1 million people have been stuck on a working-age benefit for at least three out of the past four years, despite being judged capable of preparing or looking for work. “
Yet the Guardian’s RealityCheck and fullfact.org show that the facts paint a very different picture.
By the Government’s own definition, 600,000 of this number are not able to work – as the TUC point out
”30% are lone parents with children below school age claiming Income Support (IS) while the remaining 30% are either claiming Employment Support Allowance or are in the process of being assessed. All ESA claimants are unable to work. Those on the work-related activity group are expected to be able to work eventually but are not yet fit to work.”
“By the Department of Work and Pensions’s own definitions all they have proved is that those people who should not be looking for work stay on benefits. Well that’s not news.”The Works and Pensions Minister has got recent form when it comes to being economical with the truth.
Recently a former DWP chief economist took IDS to task for claiming that 8,000 people had found work as a result of the benefit when there were no such figures to support this claim.
Last week, IDS told the Sun that:
“often three generations of the same family have never worked”Political Scrapbook reported that researchers had scoured the most deprived areas of Glasgow and Middlesborough without finding a single instance of such a family.
In fact IDS’s own department could have told him that two-generation-never-working families are very rare.
The Tories are resorting to distortions, and disgraceful smears (see Cameron and Osborne’s support for the Daily Mail’s disgraceful coverage of the tragic deaths of six children in Derbyshire) because more people are refusing to swallow their lies and resistance to their vicious assault on the welfare state is growing.
Protests against the bedroom tax are spreading across the country and are having an impact. Edinburgh is the latest council to confirm that they will not evict.
A recent ComRes poll for the Sunday People showed that a majority of people are now in favour of scrapping the bedroom tax.
The Benefit Justice Summit on May 11 will be an opportunity to bring campaigners, tenants organisations and trade unionists across the country together to co-ordinate the action that we need to defeat these vicious attacks.
Benefit Justice Summit 2
With Billy Hayes (CWU), John McDonnell (MP), tenants groups and Anti-Bedroom Tax Campaigns across UK
Saturday 11th May
11am Westminster Central Hall, Storeys Gate London SW1H 9NH
Supported by PCS, CWU, Defend Council Housing, Disabled People Against Cuts, Right To Work,
Click here to register
Right to Work
