Dark monsters of the IDS
Much has been said about the resignation of Ian Duncan Smith, our long-serving Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
For those who don't know Britain's politics and governance, that's the biggest spending ministry; it, and the NHS, are the core of Britain's commitment to Social Security.
Much of what I hear is focused on his resignation letter, in which he cites his conscience as the reason for his resignation - a conscience which, apparently, repudiates the very policies of benefit withdrawal from disabled people he wholeheartedly promoted abd pursued, even unto a death toll measured in the thousands.
Nevertheless, the commentariat are concentrating on his conscientious stance and praising him for principled rejection of those policies.
I disagree, insofar as they are both right and wrong. Here's a good example, from Richard Murphy at the Tax Justice Network:
"I think in his own mind he is being sincere and that a personal Rubicon, pitched at a place many of us might feel incomprehensible, was crossed and he felt he had to go"
I believe the Rubicon was that the abolition of PIP, a policy proposal introduced by IDS himself a week before the budget, was pulled by Osborne and the Treasury.
Ministers can and should resign for that: a policy reversed - not so much an insult or a slap in the face, as a punch that stops you in your tracks. They pulled *his* policy from the national budget, after it had been announced and named by the Chancellor himself, in his budget speech, on Budget Day.
He was fired in all but name.
The Rubicon, however, is the river not the reason; and we must look at reasons why IDS, the Chancellor - and, without doubt, the Prime Minister - decided as they did.
Bluntly, the attack on the disabled had become politically toxic and a prior policy, the £30 cut to ESA, was moving charities for the disabled to repudiate Conservative MPs as patrons and campaign sponsors, and 'go public' in the Daily Telegraph about the damage IDS was doing.
Toxic, indeed, with rumbles of rebellion on the benches; and the logical political response from Number 10 would be to drop the blame on IDS, repudiate his policies politically as well as fiscally, and sack a dangerous opponent in the 'Brexit' debate.
IDS took the expedient course of jumping ship before they made him walk the plank.
But, just as the 'conscience' commentary is both right and wrong, so is Ian Duncan Smith's disingenuity in stating which principles provoked his resignation.
He was and is committed to destabilising and obliterating Social Security - the socialist principle of an economically secure society - a point of view incomprehensible to those who did not see a youthful teenage boy, Ian Duncan Smith himself, stand up and harangue *The Conservative Party Conference* about the moral evils of Welfare and the mission of modern Conservatism to restore the self-reliant strength of the British People.
He was cheered to the rafters by the conference, and he grew into his political adulthood at Margaret Thatcher's very knee: a conviction politician, committed to his mission, always raising the roof at the Conference; and utterly, unshakeably convinced that he is in the right.
MP, Party Leader, moral crusader for the principles of modern Conservatism, and the most effective Minister for Work and Pensions since the Welfare State was founded.
Alas that the agenda he effected was that of his poisoned principles.
And now he's out: all political careers end in failure.
If we look at the things that he has always believed in - and surely still believes - and we discount the things a politician finds expedient to say, one point of principle still rings true.
His most principled objection to his colleagues' actions is that they were politically inept to bundle tax cuts for the wealthy with support cuts for disabled people.
And, in that, he is both right and wrong: and so ex-minister IDS strides out to the world convinced that he was right - right in everything he did - and that his colleagues lacked the vision and the media skills to push the PIP cut through.
I fear that he was right about the latter, on the day that he resigned: and wrong that they won't do it later - they'll do it slowly, slicing our support for the disabled down to nothing and carefully keeping the Party and the media onside as they do it.
Nevertheless, I'm glad to see the back of him; I hope that we will see a reversal of his policies to match Chris Grayling's ignominious ejection from the Ministry of Justice, but I cannot say that I am optimistic. The performative Christianity of his successor is commendably sincere but it does not extend as far as any Bible readings about generosity to the poor and the sick.
His successor walks with open eyes into the mantrap of an Eighteen-Billion-Pound fiasco of a botched IT project, a backbench rebellion, and a United Nations investigation of mass human rights abuses against the disabled.
This is a copy of my post here, on Dreamwidth, which has
comments. OpenID will allow you to comment there from your LiveJournal session: contact me if you have problems.
For those who don't know Britain's politics and governance, that's the biggest spending ministry; it, and the NHS, are the core of Britain's commitment to Social Security.
Much of what I hear is focused on his resignation letter, in which he cites his conscience as the reason for his resignation - a conscience which, apparently, repudiates the very policies of benefit withdrawal from disabled people he wholeheartedly promoted abd pursued, even unto a death toll measured in the thousands.
Nevertheless, the commentariat are concentrating on his conscientious stance and praising him for principled rejection of those policies.
I disagree, insofar as they are both right and wrong. Here's a good example, from Richard Murphy at the Tax Justice Network:
"I think in his own mind he is being sincere and that a personal Rubicon, pitched at a place many of us might feel incomprehensible, was crossed and he felt he had to go"
I believe the Rubicon was that the abolition of PIP, a policy proposal introduced by IDS himself a week before the budget, was pulled by Osborne and the Treasury.
Ministers can and should resign for that: a policy reversed - not so much an insult or a slap in the face, as a punch that stops you in your tracks. They pulled *his* policy from the national budget, after it had been announced and named by the Chancellor himself, in his budget speech, on Budget Day.
He was fired in all but name.
The Rubicon, however, is the river not the reason; and we must look at reasons why IDS, the Chancellor - and, without doubt, the Prime Minister - decided as they did.
Bluntly, the attack on the disabled had become politically toxic and a prior policy, the £30 cut to ESA, was moving charities for the disabled to repudiate Conservative MPs as patrons and campaign sponsors, and 'go public' in the Daily Telegraph about the damage IDS was doing.
Toxic, indeed, with rumbles of rebellion on the benches; and the logical political response from Number 10 would be to drop the blame on IDS, repudiate his policies politically as well as fiscally, and sack a dangerous opponent in the 'Brexit' debate.
IDS took the expedient course of jumping ship before they made him walk the plank.
But, just as the 'conscience' commentary is both right and wrong, so is Ian Duncan Smith's disingenuity in stating which principles provoked his resignation.
He was and is committed to destabilising and obliterating Social Security - the socialist principle of an economically secure society - a point of view incomprehensible to those who did not see a youthful teenage boy, Ian Duncan Smith himself, stand up and harangue *The Conservative Party Conference* about the moral evils of Welfare and the mission of modern Conservatism to restore the self-reliant strength of the British People.
He was cheered to the rafters by the conference, and he grew into his political adulthood at Margaret Thatcher's very knee: a conviction politician, committed to his mission, always raising the roof at the Conference; and utterly, unshakeably convinced that he is in the right.
MP, Party Leader, moral crusader for the principles of modern Conservatism, and the most effective Minister for Work and Pensions since the Welfare State was founded.
Alas that the agenda he effected was that of his poisoned principles.
And now he's out: all political careers end in failure.
If we look at the things that he has always believed in - and surely still believes - and we discount the things a politician finds expedient to say, one point of principle still rings true.
His most principled objection to his colleagues' actions is that they were politically inept to bundle tax cuts for the wealthy with support cuts for disabled people.
And, in that, he is both right and wrong: and so ex-minister IDS strides out to the world convinced that he was right - right in everything he did - and that his colleagues lacked the vision and the media skills to push the PIP cut through.
I fear that he was right about the latter, on the day that he resigned: and wrong that they won't do it later - they'll do it slowly, slicing our support for the disabled down to nothing and carefully keeping the Party and the media onside as they do it.
Nevertheless, I'm glad to see the back of him; I hope that we will see a reversal of his policies to match Chris Grayling's ignominious ejection from the Ministry of Justice, but I cannot say that I am optimistic. The performative Christianity of his successor is commendably sincere but it does not extend as far as any Bible readings about generosity to the poor and the sick.
His successor walks with open eyes into the mantrap of an Eighteen-Billion-Pound fiasco of a botched IT project, a backbench rebellion, and a United Nations investigation of mass human rights abuses against the disabled.
This is a copy of my post here, on Dreamwidth, which has
comments. OpenID will allow you to comment there from your LiveJournal session: contact me if you have problems.