...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.

Signed.

I dare say there are people who have the misfortune to live on £54 per week but I'm not altogether sure that the man on the Today programme is one of them.

Well, I know someone who attended a meeting about the new benefit system with IDS and most of the meeting ended up being people explaining to IDS that the majority of households whether or not on benefits are NOT married couples with 2 children with a SAHM and male wage earner.

His model for benefits was that all money would be paid to the male "head of the household" who could them distribute the money as he saw fit to his extended family.

Cue a hour of poeple trying to explain about benefits that go to single mothers. I don't think he understands the reality of the UK - his social model seems to be ancient Rome and the pater familias.

He is not fit to be in charge of a whelk stall.

I signed the petition, despite it being pretty whimsical. It's change.org, not the house of commons website, so it won't be discussed in parliament, but hopefully this massive response to his foolish, patronising bullshit will alert some journos who have their heads equally in the clouds that his cuts do not have the popular support that they claim.

Signed. I hate this grabby, hard-nosed fuck-you attitude. I am hard working and have paid loads of tax over the years. I work now but can't survive without a top up. I had the misfortune to marry a seemingly upright twunt citizen who turned out to be anything but

I've signed.

Would love for this to be changed to include the entire Conservative party [bugrin].

We lived on a very low wage not long after we first moved in together. The hotel dh worked for went into administration. He hadn't been paid for 2 months. He was the main wage-earner in our household, I was working for min wage in a crappy pt job (the recession had just kicked in and there were no ft jobs availiable). We couldn't afford to finish furnish our house so we slept on an old mattress and put a paper tablecloth on the floor for mealtimes. Dh took any work he could get and I worked evenings for a fast-food chain, wiping down the tables and emptying the bins (they don't let just anyone flip the burgers, y'know) but I would often turn up to be told that they had too many staff on and I had to be sent home. I used to lock myself in the cleaning cupboard at work and cry because it was so soul-destroying.

I hope to god I never have to live like that again but it really helped me understand how it feels to be poor. I agree though its not quite the same if its only temporary.

Trinpy, I would like it to be the whole govt.

There is a book by Rawls called "A theory of justice". Basically the idea is that if you got the decision makers of society to make the decisions about how society would work while having no idea what position they themselves would hold in that society they would go for something Rawls called "maxi-min" - they would maximise the well-being of the worst-off. You could still have rich people or even a few insanely rich people, but if you didn't know what situation you were going to land in, you would hedge your bets and make sure that all situations were at least reasonably alright.

I think we should actively apply this principle to the govt. I think we should force them all to live for reasonable periods of time under the conditions that they impose on others. As other posters have said, they should still work and maintain their other obligations while living on £54 a week. Let them try to squeeze the last bit of glue out of the tube to mend their broken shoes in the middle of the night, hoping it will dry by the morning in time for work; let them do this while the baby is teething and they can't afford the usual staff, and they have work in the morning; let them do everything they have to do with no cabs, no money to eat out, not even to grab a ready made sandwich or coffee, no paid help, hardly any proper protein. Let them do it.

Signed

Well IDS is being paid by the taxpayer about 140 grand a year. Yet he crucifies poor people

diverting A little Vic Derbyshire has disappeared fro radio 5Live misteriously. Has she had a baby?

Poverty really bites over time, this isn't a matter of surviving on £53 for one week.

I've signed and would love to see this experiment played out over a year, however would suggest the following amendments:

1. IDS is placed on an estate with no nearby shops other than an expensive newsagents, a long and expensive bus journey from the nearest town
2. He starts the experiment with no insurance of any kind on any household goods, etc.
3. Empty cupboards
4. A set of very basic, old, inefficient and unreliable household appliances; and 5. A collection of nearly worn out secondhand clothes.

Agree - we could all manage for 1 week but if it's your whole fucking life, and you haven't the education, contacts or experience either personally or in your social circle to get out of it then I can't really see anyone surviving as a happy, law abiding, socially engaged citizen.

I think I could manage but only because I know I've the education and social skills to get out of that situation. IDS, if he's genuine and not just speaking the rhetoric which keeps him in privilege, has totally overlooked his own socially constructed resources - like education, like having a social circle that models work and social engagement that would make it possible for him.

If he could survive on £53 a week then he should accept it as his salary for the rest of his public service. I'd be interested to see how long he remained in public service on those terms, even with his free housing and inherited wealth...

In fact I think that, under the circumstances described (estate in the middle of nowhere, second hand wearing out clothes, no cabs, no staff etc) he should be docked money from this if he is ever late to any of his engagements ever. No bike, no car, bus doesn't turn up, no money for cabs, holes in shoes = late. Which, irl, means that those in low-status jobs, on benefits, or in workfare lose money. So should he.

Curryeater That would be an unfair comparison though as it does cost a lot of money to work.

£53 a week, I would say is impossible to survive on. This is supposed to include rent, food, fuel and clothes??

WhatKindofFool I think I'd have him stay at home with fortnightly visits to the Job Centre. Social isolation is a major hurdle for many stuck in the poverty trap. Not 100% convinced that going to work is more expensive, just think of the free perks, most have access to the internet, free heating and cups of coffee.

Agree with curryeater that his money should be docked if he is late for any appointments, public transport is very unreliable and many of the sanctions currently given to job seekers are downright petty and unfair. Be good to see how he feels when he's on the receiving end.

Signed.

I didn't see the Today programme - was that £53 including rent, council tax, bills, petrol, food etc? I have signed - I'd love to see him try! I spend more than £100 per week on food, petrol and bus fares (to work) alone, not counting rent/bills etc that come off at the beginning of the month.

As said upthread I've lived on less before and the thought of going back to that life fills me with dread, I really couldn't bear it. I knew I'd get out of it and worked hard to do it but not everyone is that lucky. This is there life, every single day of it, for ever. Now that is poverty. What quality of life is that? It's not good enough saying people can live on that amount of money. They need a light at the end of the tunnel, help to get out of the rut.

I would like to see him sitting in his own mortgaged home, unable to mend broken window latches because he can't afford it (like me) & there's no landlord to pay for the repairs.
With no insulation in his walls or roof, heating turned down low as possible or turned off, sat in his coat & scarf & hat & 3 layers of clothing.

I'd like him to have to find the money for his mortgage (no Housing Benefit for mortgage payers) from the £54 a week.
He won't be able to sell the home because he can't pay for Estate Agent fees, or Solicitors fees etc etc.

I hope there'll be a Foodbank near where he lives or he'll get skinny fast in that situation haaha.

PS if my family weren't so kind as to pay for food (cheapest tinned fish, no meat for me) then i'd be down the Foodbank too.

Who exactly is living on £53 per week at the moment. I'd like to see their budget.

Not rent, lottie, but everything else. Including your council tax, now, in many areas.

my son is Vivienne not a scrounger just 23 and cant even get an interview for a real job (those he has been sent on all turn out not to be paid jobs at all). he lives in a crummy privately rented room and if it wasn't for me helping out of my own very much less-than-average-wage job.. he'd be totally stuffed

In a speech in 2011 IDS complained about an entrenched sense of entitlement in UK society. Even though he lives in a house on the Buckinghamshire estate of his father-in-law, the 5th Baron Cottesloe. Terrible thing "entitlement", I hope his actions reign in the over-housed and titled. Somehow I think he prefers to persecute those without very much to those with plenty.

Petition signed.