...to think that some of you'd like to see Iain Duncan-Smith live on £53 per week for a year

[SDeuchars]

If there are still spaces on the petition, please sign it.

Had to pay the plumber £50 yesterday to mend a leak.

Just deciding what to spend my other £3 on!

I find myself agreeing with Xenia (again). There is an "entitlement" benefits culture e.g. teenage pregnancy, never worked, no problem, the State will have a legal obligation to house and finance you and as many children as you want! Fact. Many responsible, ordinary working-class people actually resent this, as it gives them look like mugs.

Makes them look like mugs.

I wonder whether there really is an 'entitlement' culture. When it comes down to it, how many people know people who have never worked. There's an awful lot of Daily Mail type finger pointing, which when it's investigated properly doesn't stand up to examination.

But this is off topic. Could IDS live on £53 a week? I am sure he could for one week, but for 20 odd years, for ever? No.

I wonder whether there really is an 'entitlement' culture. When it comes down to it, how many people know people who have never worked.

I know people/families who've never worked, not many, and admittedly, most of those have has some sort of short term, minimum wage job, they never lasted though. But I did grow up on a council estate in Liverpool in the 1980's. I moved to Surrey when I was a teenager and got a job in a supermarket, I was shocked to have got a job because I had grown up surrounded by the idea that there where no jobs. This was largely true though for the particular type of job (male manual labour) in that time and place. I wonder if this present day culture of multi generational worklessness has grown from the Thatcher years of the 1980's?

It's not "entitlement it's called doing what you have to. If you live hand to mouth then you are going to claim what you can, work cash in hand etc.

Ironically if everything wasn't means tested you would stand more chance of people making the most of work.
If you lose housing benefit and tax credits start wanting money back from last years work then it's going to only make "proper" work actually beneficial.

Yes, there are, or at least were, many more jobs in the South East than in other parts of the country. The biggest problem then comes with finding affordable housing.

Problem is, as someone mentioned about Co Durham, is that there is simply not enough 1 bedroom housing available. There are people who would be happy to be in a 1 bed but the waiting list is too long. So they will be penalised for not having the choice.

Also, as people get the Universal Credit payment monthly, some people won't be able to pay their rent = arrears = will be evicted, and so the government will have a responsibility to house them.

And not to mention the small housing associations that will go bust because they can't afford to go for months in arrears of rent.

This reform hasn't been thought through, no matter which angle you are coming from.

IDS has replied: It's a stunt!

I read that in the Mail. There was lots of 'bloody' this and 'bloody' that and 'I'm not taking any bloody lessons from the Left' that which they wouldn't normally print.

I think it was meant to give the impression of a decent man pushed too far when trying only to do a proper job for the good of the nation.

It came over to me as Duncan-Smith's usual peevish bluster when caught in a bear trap that a senior politician ought to see a mile off and side-step effortlessly.

The Mail helped him out of the hole further by trashing the £53-a-week man. I think Today could have chosen a much better example, but the fact the Mail saw the need to do it displays their contempt for a man who can't even be trusted to get a simple stitch-up of 'scroungers' right.

The problem with all this is that IDS loves camping. He'd go into the woods, build a shelter, gather firewood and forage for food. At the end of the week he'd say that he's been wrong all along. Nobody actually needs benefits at all. Let alone £53.

There's a gov.uk petition now to challenge him to live on £53 a week for a year. Of course he would never do this but it would be great to see this debated in parliament. Looks like it needs loads more signatures though!

here

No there's a gov.uk one now as well!

But why should IDS live on £53 a week? He has a job, it's a free country and people are free to move/retrain/take a job. Where I work there are lots of immigrants, they seem happy to work.

Signed the gov.uk one.

It doesn't specify all the things people here have said him being on it for a year, crappy clothes, no bus fare etc...

But it'll embarrass the bastards

But why shouldn't he waterfalls? He said he could.

As long as he's on £53 when all the bills arrive and has to attend interviews for minimum wage jobs, but even then he'll be better off because he'll have something that many of us haven't;the prospect of decent employment!

Oh Lori - the average single mother is not a teenager....she is 37 and has found herself in a post divorce situation. Single mothers who are teenagers account for 3% of the single mother demographic. 55% of single mothers had their children within marriage.

Waterfalls, I think you are missing the point just a little bit. He is being challenged to do so because he seems to think it's easier than it actually is. The government seems in the most part to be incredibly out of touch with the lives of a huge segment of society.

Flamin', I didn't say single mothers, who I do understand have different circumstances, sometimes complex, and I am also quite aware of those statistics.

I said and meant dependant teenage single mothers who are entitled to housing and benefits that their working and studying peers aren't, which frankly is an absolute piss-take. Such girls have never worked or contributed, yet have access to cash, housing and other legal entitlements that their peers do not have. Its totally the wrong way around!

Similarly, why should a person under 30 on benefits be entitled to a whole flat to themselves because HB will pay it, but a single person working be entitled to nothing and only be able to afford a bedroom in a flatshare!

Another example, a friend of mine is a drug-worker and all her unemployed, drug addicted clients demand council flats. They turn their noses up at studios because they feel entitled to a minimum 1-bedroom flat . My friend works with these clients, but (irony) cannot herself afford to either buy or rent a 1-bedroom flat. As she is just a single, working woman, she is entitled to nothing.

I'll stop there. None of this makes even remotest sense, and I am glad that some of these inequalities are finally being addressed.

For the record, I think we are living in dark and difficult times, and I think it will get worse, as immigration continues, and the consequences of that including higher birth rate, not enough housing, not enough space, not enough jobs. Its not going to be easy, and I honestly think its very confusing for everyone. But I think some positive things may hopefully come out of it. More self-respect. More sense of personal responsibility. More self-reliance. More co-operation and support for each other. But of course it could all go belly-up, which I think is the scary thing (witness riots last year).

why should a person under 30 on benefits be entitled to a whole flat to themselves - They're not, they only get the room entitlement.

Sorry if I've missed an earlier post where you acknowledged that, Lori. I do feel for non-resident parents aged under 30 who depend on HB.

Your friend is either doing her sums badly or misrepresenting her situation (and her clients'.) Top-up benefits exist to ensure that nobody is worse off in work. Obviously this doesn't always come true in practice, largely thanks to the usual gaping blind spots where childcare is concerned. If your friend is single and childfree, she must be earning the equivalent of JSA + HB + CTB or she would get benefits.

Whether there are actually any one-bed flats available at the LHA level for where she lives is a whole other matter. But that problem is the same for her clients.

Sorry, her clients "demand council flats"? Hahahahah! Demand all they like, if they ever manage to get one it'll be in a tower block that's so nervous it's unsuitable for families - and that's with prioritisation for their vulnerability.

I'm not sure this imagined utopia of lovely homes and well-stocked cupboards for all has ever existed in Britain. It certainly hasn't done for many years now, and has been getting steadily worse; these 'reforms' are going to cause real, developing-world style poverty. In this, the sixth wealthiest nation.

No one lives on £53 a week, what utter baloney. Add free housing, prescriptions, health care, education, school meals, council tax, eye care etc etc and it all adds up to a fair and liveable sum

Not getting your POV here. Can u expand? Interesting.