General Chat

Well if I take the figure of £71 that is swallowed up by Council Tax and utilities.

£53 will pay Council Tax and Water Bill with about £5 to be stretched over utilities, food, clothes and incidentals.

Bet he does not take up the challenge.

"I will remove the word tosser if asked, but I will still be thinking it!"

Rose if you substituted it with one of the words I have on my list you'd be banned. I think it's a fair description :-D

Cat if I'd substituted it with one of the words on MY list, I'd be banned lolol :-D

Would it not be a good idea for the whole House of Commons to be paid minimum wage + housing benefit ? They could apply to Westminster City Council for housing and school places.

There is no obvious reason anyway why they should be paid any more than the average in their constituency. At Cabinet level it is civil servants who do all the donkey work not ministers. If you get a chance to visit one of the very many HoC bars (full) or the chamber (usually empty) you'll see what I mean.

I found this interesting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/02/ten-lies-told-about-welfare

Thanks for that link Cat

Rickys got it spot on there

his bar bill bigger than that he could never live on that

yep put his money where his mouth is :-( :-(

I heard the interview this morning. This market trader quite aggressively told him that he was living on £53 and could he do that. The answer from IDS was "yes, if I had to". Good, clear, direct answer which he should be praised for, not criticised.

We can all live on hardly any money if we have hardly any money. There have been weeks in my life when £53 would have been like a king's ransom.

If we haven't got any money in our account, £10 note in our pocket and a week till payday, it is amazing what we can do with that £10 if forced to.

What I would say is that, if you are on very very basic income, it becomes very depressing if there is no light at the end of the tunnel. We all live on hope. So even when you have to have minimal background heat or no heat and are eating value beans and pasta and reduced price bread, you need to know you are working towards something better.

John! It was a DIRECT answer but it wasn't an HONEST one. There IS a difference, and it's not just one of semantics.

John,,,,,,,,for some there is never going to be light at the end of tunnel.......yes a very short term people can manage,,,,,,,long term no they cant,as what £53 would buy now,,,,,,,,wont buy in 12 months time,,,,,you do come out with hot air at times..........

IDS has got quite a reputation for lying. In particular, his university career was found to be fictional.

Rose, perhaps it is a step too far to expect them to be truthful. I gave up on truth when Blair was in No 10. But how seldom does a politician answer a question directly?

How much better he answered this chap than did the usual politician's trick of answering another question entirely ie "we spend a third of government expenditure on welfare and it is very unfortunate that you are suffering so much. I would very much like to discuss your personal situation in strict confidence. Could you please drop me a line and I will respond.........."

YUK YUK YUK No, I prefer what IDS said.

John a lie is a lie whether it's wrapped up in a hundred words or just 5 ( "yes, if I had to".)

It's not a lie though, is it.

We can only spend what is available to us. We keep ourselves alive. In India, they almost all do that on about £4 a day. I have had hardly anything for several weeks at a time yet had to manage.

Some posters on here are spending very little because they don't have access to any more cash.

The alternative is to beg, or to look for charity, or to give up and die. But I never gave up, I don't believe you would ever give up even if your roof caved in (very sorry to read that on another thread) and IDS would never give up, I feel sure. So I say he was not lying. He has proved in his military career that he is not a quitter.

IDS will never have to prove that he can live on £53 per week.

That would be two bottles of wine or one bottle of champagne. 6 slices of good truffle, two minimal shops at the deli.

Of course he could manage.........











For 24 hours!

Why should he have to live on £53 a week? If he managed it for a week, what does that prove? Does it make him better at his job?

I remember Michael Portillo swapping places with a mum and Asda employee and Ann Widdicome living with anti-social neighbours.

Do we now think they are much better politicians as a result of that?

IDS earns £135k a year. Dwight Tiandalli (Swansea) earns £1.6m a year. Richie Rich earns £13m, David Harding £87m

I earn (including bonus) just over £18k. And I reckon I wolrk harder and am worth more than any of them - certainly a better footballer than Dwight Tiandalli. But you can hardly complain that IDS earns too much when the head of Tesco is due about £4m this year

I wish lamb chops were cheap !! :-|

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Apart from the footballers - who are grossly overpaid for being able to kick a football, but they don't affect my life - the rest of them, rest assured, got where they are through the 'old boys' network.
They earn too much money, have never had to earn a 'normal' wage, never wondered how they're going to pay the next bill and don't know what life is like in the 'real' world.
A bit of truth shoved down their throats (avoiding the plum if you insist) would do them a power of good.

They might learn the meaning of empathy.

Iain Duncan Smith yesterday brushed aside the challenge for him to live on £53 a week, calling it a stunt.

He is reported as saying, that he understands what it is like for people to live in poverty as he has been unemployed and had to struggle. He added that the honest truth was that he does not need any lessons from anyone on this because he has worked hard all his life for what he has achieved and nobody has given him a damn penny.

It appears he was unemployed twice for short periods, once when he left the army in his late 20s and again when a property firm made him redundant and according to some reports, he has never claimed unemployment benefit, instead he relied on his savings.

He must have really struggled :-|

I was unemployed for 18 months and never was able to claim a penny. You watch your savings plummet and try to live on the absolute minimum. Which in some cases is extremely less than £53 a week.

But the difference is that you can dip into savings if the garage roof falls in or the car has a flat tyre, you can borrow money off friends and partners, you can sponge off them up to a point (most people like to give if they can).

So there are good moments and hope of a better future even in the blackest weeks. But a lot on benefits do not have much of that.

I always had substantial pensions tucked away and a house worth a small fortune (which I could not sell easily). And eventually we are reasonably comfortable. Like you, OFG. But I would be surprised if very many of us do not remember the worry of not having enough that month to properly feed and clothe ourselves and family. That is the precaricity of modern life. I had a millionaire boss who retired and put his money into a Lloyds syndicate in late 1980's. Enough said.