The reinvention of Iain Duncan Smith: is he the man to save the Tories?
Ethel_Fred
Posts: 34,127 Forum Member
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/15/iain-duncan-smith-tories-universal-credit
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As I watched Iain Duncan Smith on The Andrew Marr Show, it occurred to me that the very humility and placidity that so unsuited him to the leader’s job are precisely what make him such an asset to his party at this specific moment, in this specific campaign.
For starters, IDS incarnates the simplicity of style, calmness of countenance and visible sincerity of motive that elude many of his colleagues. Privately petulant though he can be, he is never smug. And, with less than three months to go, the Tory party badly needs comprehensive desmugification.
The tax avoidance scandal has been the first punctuation mark of this general election campaign, and one that Conservative strategists would dearly like to put behind them. In particular, they hope the issue will at least be smudged into neutrality by claims of Labour donors aggressively avoiding tax and Ed Miliband himself limiting inheritance tax liability on his parents’ home in 1994.
What will not do much damage is the charge of hypocrisy. Different parties have different vulnerabilities. The voters fear that the default character of the Tories is avarice and indifference to the vulnerable – just as they fret that, in office, Labour’s benign intentions will be eclipsed by fundamental incompetence. If Miliband fails to become prime minister in May, it will not be because he and his family once used a deed of variation.
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Comments
Er....
he's still the same slapheaded inbicile as ever
We aren't supposed to take it seriously. The article, or the Guardian.
You just know when this article was being created everyone involved was giggling.
As I understand it the ghost of Margaret Thatcher is to be guest editor of the Observer next week.
As regards the article, it was written by Matthen D'Ancona, who is usually an inhabintant oif the Tory house newspaper, the Telegraph - pinch of salt time, I think.
what benefit scroungers are potential tory voters?
turkeys and xmas
yep and then the tories will counter with
a picture of outgoing chief secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne wrote a letter stating 'I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.'
Well saying more hard working people are now needing to claim benefits, and these hard working people are now being attacked by IDS the tory party are attacking ANYONE claiming benefits is going to backfire on them. As there are millions more hard working people needing to claim benefits than a few benefit scroungers. Or are you saying anyone claiming benefits is a scrounger. First IDS came for the unemployed, then the sick, then the disabled, now is is attacking the low paid workers.
He has tainted anything Tory, some of the things they did do re: tax threshold and apprenticeships were Lib Dem ideas anyway.
nice try but no sale
my point was that people who are low paid unskilled and mostly dependant on state benefits dont vote tory , turkeys and xmas
so no loss
I Know some professionals that have to claim working tax credits i.e. benefits.
so what? theyre not DEPENDANT on them so prob a potential tory voter pissed off with very high taxes to pay for those that are eg 50% tax under labour
you do know haw election campaigns work right?
Your point also seems to be that such people are 'scroungers'.
Nice little insight into the working man's champion, the 'peeples army' there....
The mask slips. It doesn't take much to make it do so. ;-)
Are they not do you know some of my friends then.;-)
Well saying 25 million people in the uk claim 1 or more benefits. Then thats a lot of voters. Attacking them could just well backfire on the tories, and OAPs are being attacked as well dont forget alot of them claim benefits as well, and have been hit hard though the back door social care budget slashed by 42%
but the dont vote, they just moan about just like the under 25s
the wrinklies do vote however
so they get winter fuel payments and pension bribes sorry pensioner bonds
this is the way the parties work at election time
surprised that people are shocked by this
Well i do believe millions more will vote in this GE, people who might not have ever botherd before will vote this year. Sorry pensioners are not so easy to bribe they are not daft. pensioners call for £62 a week rise in state pension
http://welfarenewsservice.com/pensio...-older-people/. Pensioners are calling for £62 a week rise in the State Pension as part of a “grey manifesto” ahead of the 2015 general election, the Morning Star has reported.
The National Pensioners Convention (NPC) will tomorrow (17 June 2014) call for the state pension to increase from £113 a week to £175, in a bid to help lift older people out of poverty.
1 in 6 pensioners in the UK are currently living below the poverty line, according to Age UK, despite the introduction of the coalition government’s ‘triple lock guarantee’, which guarantees an annual rise in the basic state pension in-line with earnings, prices or 2.5% – whichever is higher.
According to Age UK, pensioners are ‘the biggest group of people on the brink of poverty with 1.2 million on the edge’.
No pensioners are not daft.
A list of bribes by various parties.
Spare rooms paid for IE No spare room implications for pensioners.
Free Bus passes.Pensioner bonds.
Heating allowance.I think pensioners are very easy to bribe.;-)
I disagree i think the turnout will be low 62%? except for the jocks 80%?
goodbye ED
And goodbye Cameron if in his second election he cannot get a working majority.;-)
that deals already done ages ago
Cam will continue in a minority govt for a bit then Boris will be leader
do keep up