...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.

[HesterShaw]

What a bloody ridiculous thing to say. Your comment is astounding in its stupidity, Chockyeggpants.

That crucial little concept called "cost of living" hasn't occurred to you has it?

I'm sure folk on £54 a week could survive just lovely in Bhutan on the same money, you're right.

[amothersplaceisinthewrong]

When IDS said he could live on £53 a week, what was he meaning it would cover. Surely not rent and council tax?

If he had absolutely no luxuries at all, walked everywhere, and ate baked potatoe and beans all week as his main meal, and heated his house ofr about an hour a day, maybe he could manage...

[limitedperiodonly]

quint the kindest way to put it is that Duncan-Smith made a misleading statement on his CV that may have led an employer to believe he had a degree from a prestigious Italian university when in fact he'd attended a brief non-degree course at a college down the road. He also made the most of a month-long series of classes sponsored by a former employer which led to no qualification.

That's the sort of thing any of us might be tempted to do when finding ourselves redundant in a competitive jobs market, such as the one there is now.

But most people would advise against putting that on a CV in case an employer finds out and shows you the door.

I find it fascinating that the Secretary of State for The Department of Work and Pensions hasn't advised today's jobseekers not to follow his example. Or maybe he would tell to go for it because sometimes people don't check. Sadly, it's one of the few matters about finding work in a challenging environment of which Duncan-Smith has experience but keeps quiet on.

The other thing he knows about is being a middle-aged person who's let go by an employer, as happened to him when the Conservative Party waved him goodbye as leader 10 years ago.

Luckily he was able to hold on to his other job as Chingford MP and has managed to reinvent himself. Although an air of humility about those people not fortunate enough to represent a safe seat would be nice.

[Kendodd]

Suppose he takes up this challenge and survives beautifully? What are people going to say then?

Maybe he'll arrive with his own bike to get from a to b, he'll stay in the smallest (cheap to heat) place he can find, and eat a really healthy veggie diet with loads of lentils.

I don't know what else he has to pay for out of his £54 per week, but I could feed myself easily out of that. I fear this whole petition could back fire.

[Vev]

And when he takes a huge reduction in his salary, to live on his fifty odd quid for a year, he should donate it to homeless shelters. Put his money where his mouth is.

[MurderOfGoths]

I think that if he were to do this in a way that actually meant anything, and gave him any real idea he would have to

• Do it without knowing when it would stop. So have to deal with the uncertainty.
  
• Start off with the money being delayed due to processing.
  
• Have to find a LL that takes HB.
  
• Sign on every fortnight.
  
• Apply for jobs and get to interviews, making sure to go the furthest distance the jobcentre dictates.
  
• Have to factor in how he'd pay off a credit card which has an average amount of debt on it.
  
• Be quoted insurance as if he were unemployed.
  
• Have to deal with at least one expensive emergency (broken cooker, broken car etc)
  
• Start off with cheap clothes/furniture etc so that he has to factor in the lower quality stuff wearing out sooner.
  
• Not have anyone else pay for his meals, drinks etc.

[limitedperiodonly]

Of course you can do that short term, especially if you have a point to prove kendodd

Duncan 'quiet man' Smith has previous for making vainglorious statements and some people in the government aren't happy with him for foolishly blurting that out on the Today programme when he should have anticipated a bear trap.

But submitting to a regime such as greenbananas and lexilexi have mentioned is a lot more difficult.

Duncan-Smith will tell us that he's far too busy sorting out the scroungers on the welfare state to do anything like live on £53 a week. But it's a useful thing to bait him with seeing as he's vain and amusingly thin-skinned.

[SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter]

Chockyeggpants People in other countries may be living on pennies, but that doesn't mean we (in one of the richest countries in the world) should try to emulate that. We should aspire to bring our living standards up to those in countries such as Sweden, not dragging the poor down to subsistence levels.

[Laska42]

he night,, but if he did it properly like most people on benefits do .. not like hes just lost his job , but like hes been doing it for a while he'd find,,,

1. you need money to buy a bike (or he could steal one of course like many scroungers do) .
   

2 vegetables and lentils and the gas / elec / pots and pans to cook then , cost more than meals from Iceland or aldi in a microwave (or there is scrounging from closed markets attheend of the day and supermarket bins)

1. small places privately rented cost lots and are well beyond most peoples means
   

I just had to fork out nearly £1000 to a letting agency for the tinest of studio flats in rent in advance. guarantor agreements , 'application fee' and 'inventory@ (of an unfurnished studio) for my unemployed son of 22, who yes,will get housing benefit and JSA (lower rate because he is under 25) but will still be £50 a month short on his rent of £320 (the cheapest we could find) , but he couldn't have funded anywhere to live otherwise..

Why doesn't he live with me? . .. he's moved to another city from our high unemployment area so hopefully he can find a job

Yes you could feed yourself.. but there clothes , shoes, bus fares to find work, council tax (now) water gas electricity , furniture and white goods which break or wear out..

[nkf]

If he did it, it still wouldn't prove anything. Most people could do it. Many people do. Most rich people could do it. Many poor people do it all the time. It's just no way to live week in, week out. It's a silly statement.

[limitedperiodonly]

I have no time to reply to chocky. I'm too busy sorting through the stinking rubbish next door to my slum.

[Kendodd]

What exactly would he have to pay for with his £53 per week? I'm sure this isn't to cover everything, rent, tax, bills, food etc. That would be impossible but it's not for everything, what is it to cover?

[Kendodd]

As I said, I fear this whole thing is going to backfire. Didn't Michael Portillo do something similar and manage very well?

[Kendodd]

Although I know it's not long term.

[limitedperiodonly]

laska42 one of the things that enraged me about a Jamie Oliver programme teaching a feckless single mother how to eat homecooked food with a knife and fork was that he didn't explain how she'd have any money left over for delicious food after buying a knife and fork, and pans and plates, a fridge, a cooker, the bus fare to go and buy it or maybe the internet connection to order it and the gas and electricity to run them and wash up.

The other thing that enraged me was that she was so starstruck, or maybe downtrodden and edited, that she didn't tell him that.

[nkf]

Michael Portillo did. It was filmed. He lived with the family of a single mother for a week. He was adorable if I remember correctly. Did her TA job, cooked a chicken, read to the children, wore a pinny. Not sure how she fared as a cabinet minister but perhaps they didn't do the swap.

[Tortington]

nadine dorris was on LBC radio and said about the tower block programme that MPs took part in that they did not have to live off benefits, they DID budget money with families who had those benefits - but they ate very nicely with the camera crew and to her (loony) honest credit she did say that the programme was totally falsely advertised.

she also stated that she made a spag bol for 12 people for next to nothing using basic ingrediants - and what 'these people' want to do is microwave meals and get instant gratification.

Its perfectly do-able said she....after just admitting that she never actually did it

[Chockyeggpants]

The negative responses to my earlier post just shows how entitled UK dwellers are. So my comments are stupid are they? Pot and kettle springs to mind.
I remember the Michael Portillo programme too. I recall he did very well.

[SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter]

Entitled? No, it's basic human decency not to want your fellow citizens to live in abject poverty. If you can't relate to that, there's not much point discussing the matter.

[limitedperiodonly]

Yes, Portillo did manage okay. It was some years ago, he'd been out of Parliament since 1997 and was seeking to reinvent himself.

It's what many middle-aged people have to do when finding themselves suddenly unemployed. Most middle-aged people don't have TV companies offering them high-profile platforms on which to offer their wares.

Still, all credit to Portillo, who performed admirably on that programme, and is likeable and humble on the various well-paid TV gigs from politics to trainspotting shows that he's earned off the back of it.

Humility was in short supply when he was one of Margaret Thatcher's favourite young ministers in the '80s but I can be charitable.

Another former MP who's done it is a now-journalist called Matthew Parris. He seems thoroughly ashamed of his past views. Every time I think I should forgive him I think: 'Nah, let him carry on feeling like he used to be a shit.'

In case anyone thinks I'm partisan, there was a Labour MP, I think it was Austin Mitchell, who was disgraceful on that tower block challenge show that Duncan-Smith ducked out of when Betsy got cancer.

And I make no apologies for saying that the unfeeling bastard 'ducked out' of it. Because people's wives get cancer and they don't have a get out back to a nice life.

[garlicballs]

Helen Goodman, MP for Bishop Auckland, did an experiment with £18 for a week's food. www.youtube.com/feed/UCBa5dv2Oq9UY-zkDRDIhAsw

[Chockyeggpants]

I don't want people in the UK to live in poverty.
It's about being thankful that the UK has NHS free education and social welfare to look after those who can't look after themselves.
In other countries disabled, homeless, unemployed would be left to starve.
From what I can see the majority on this thread are whining at how little taxpayers give them to help them out.
And yes I've lived on less than £50 a week when my partners employers went bankrupt with no warning. I was grateful that the State gave us any money at all.

[JudithOfThePascha]

One of the many problems with this debate is that some people are confusing the issue of whether benefits are being properly administered with whether there are people without enough money to exist on.

The media has got so many people into a frenzy over people claiming benefits of different kinds when they don't deserve it, that the issue of whether those that truly need and deserve it are given enough just to live is buried.

I don't have a problem with many people being richer and more privileged than I am as such- but I do have a problem with the growing number of people in our country living in real poverty. If this petition goes even a tiny way to highlight this, then that can only be a good thing. However, I doubt it will even do that.

[ivykaty44]

DC tried to move IDS to another post other than DW and IDS refused to be moved - he could well seal the fate of this government if he tries a little harder

[MurderOfGoths]

Chocky Being grateful for not being on pennies a day does not mean you should just put up with barely getting enough to live.

And actually it benefits the state to make sure people can afford to live, it's not all one way.

• if people have enough money to live by then they spend it, which helps the economy.
  
• if they don't then they have to find a way to live, which often only leaves crime as an option.
  
• if they don't have enough money for a decent level of living then they put strain on the state in other ways (eg. worse health = more pressure on the NHS)
  

And that's just a few examples.