People are increasingly loath to trust politicians any
further than they can chuck them. This should not be a source of surprise: even
those who pretend they are honest and trustworthy have been shown to be nothing
of the sort. One such is Iain Duncan Smith, portrayed as truthful and straight
talking by the obedient Maily Telegraph,
while
in reality he is anything but.
Anyone needing to have IDS’ ability to indulge in flagrant
dishonesty confirmed need look no further than the Diary Of A
Benefit Scrounger blog authored by Sue Marsh, and especially a post
from New Year’s Day titled “Welfare
Whoppers”. Sue had picked up on a Tel
article by IDS claiming “we’ve
brought back fairness to welfare”, this F-word a favourite of the
so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA).
That was the same TPA that
advocated cutting welfare payments by forcibly lowering the poverty line,
which was then asserted to be “fair”.
Anyone on benefits having access to a television and a refrigerator gave deep
offence to the TPA, and such ownership was held to mean that they were not
really poor. This is where IDS is coming from when he talks welfare reform “fairness”.
Sue called
IDS out for claiming that Tax Credits rose under Labour by 58%. The actual
figure was 8%. Damn that pesky marauding 5! He had also claimed that the
annual cost of so-called “Benefit
tourism” would be £2 billion. The figure turned out to be £158 million,
which was 8% of the original claimed figure. IDS has a way with those 8%
numbers. Sometimes he has away with them completely!
The upshot of Sue’s constant IDS vigilance is that it is now
increasingly well known that this is yet another politician who you trust at
your peril. But Duncan Smith is also utterly shameless, as he demonstrated
yesterday when joining Eastleigh hopeful Maria Hutchings on the campaign trail,
and
dispensing advice as to how local Tories could counter the threat from
those dastardly Lib Dems.
So what has IDS advised Eastleigh Tories to do? But you saw
this one coming: he’s told them they should tell voters “Your last MP was a liar”. Yes, a proven liar who has been caught
basing his pronouncements on deeply dodgy figures, and who takes his cue from
an Astroturf lobby group renowned for its serial dishonesty, wants his party to
tell the electorate to “look over there”.
As Littlejohn is so fond of saying, you couldn’t make it up.
And Young Dave wonders why his party is
so utterly loathed by so many people.
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