...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.

I agree with those who say this would be a reality show experiment. So he lives on £53 for a week? No skin off his nose as he'll be back to his super heated, multi bedroom, fridge filled, bills paid house soon enough . Those whose reality it is, day after day, week after week, with no hope or glimer of it changing, other than for the worse because of his fucking party won't benefit from his experiment.

We'll get a PR spin of how he got a full weeks shop for £6.58 and had enought left over for a chippy supper on the Friday to 'celebrate' getting through the week.

Makes me so full of rage its unbelievable.

MsAverage, he's had his HB cut, I think because he's in a 3 bed house and his ex wife is main carer for the 2 children.

Apparently he's earned £2,700 in 14 months. I think such a new business should be given time to see if it can turn a reasonable profit and provide a living wage. I believe 3 years is what is usually considered reasonable.

I don't think the 1st week would be the easiest. It takes time to adjust to such a change. After a while you'd be more skilled at feeding yourself on a lower budget and have a better idea of how much electricity/gas you use.

Under the new rules, a small business will be expected to pay minimum wage from the outset. Costs will be offset against takings in the month of expenditure only, no writing down or apportionment. If the DWP deems the business insufficiently successful, it will be subjected to a plan created and monitored by Jobcentre staff

If anybody has a bit of spare capital, I suggest you invest in lease-hire schemes for everything from display units to stationery. That instant-cost thing's ridiculous! SEs will have to pay more to spread the expenditure, or fuck themselves over before getting out of bed.

Totem, taxpayers do not have to subside people's 3-year-long attempts to build their own businesses (which are transferable assets, btw). Savings, family, banks, loans, grants (if we are talking charity) - these are they ways to find money for building your assets (best case scenario) or for playing with non-viable projects (worst case scenario).

So, it does not get clearer - do his ex-wife and children live with him? If the wife earns, where the figure of £53 comes from? If the wife+kids do not live with him, why does he live in 3 bedroom house?

MsAverage - Speculating, again, but if his choice is between working his market stall all hours to get by, with a hope that business will pick up again, one day, or a zero hours contract at his local overnight petrol station (because the shelf stacking jobs at Tesco will be taken by workfare), maybe he's making the choice that is less demoralising to him and actually gives him a guaranteed income, no matter how small. That is not a hobby. If he chose not to do it, he would be choosing to receive no income of his own accord and be entirely dependent on benefits, only he wouldn't be entitled to the same benefits as someone who had been made redundant as an employee.

MsAverage, not everyone has family or savings to rely on. The idea behind these enterprise schemes was to allow people to move over to self employment without giving up the safety net of benefits. It gave time to build up a business and make it profitable.

If he's paying himself something, he is turning a profit so presumably is costing the tax payer less than if he was on straight forward benefits.

It sounds as though he could do with some advice though. I think he's selling gloves and hats, so should have had a boom period over the recent colder months.

And I read something the other day - can't remember where - that there are only a couple of hundred 1 bedroomed properties on the social housing register in the whole of County Durham and, understandably, there is a massive waiting list for them. Add in the complication that Co Durham is geographically huge, so those small properties are spread over a wide area and not evenly distributed. Most of them, as far as I am aware, are also pensioners' bungalows.

If the wife+kids do not live with him, why does he live in 3 bedroom house?'

I'm making the assumption that they do stay with him some of the time, so he would need the extra room for those occasions.

Ouvyve, it does matter how small, because taxpayers have to top it up. And let be generous to the guy, let him be a prudent and hard working, not a good-for-nothing dosser, which has "no other option" than to be entirely dependent on benefits, being in working age and health.

Anyway, I am not as much interested in the particular individual as in the size of the benefits for the working benefit receivers, who reportedly form the majority of the people on benefits. We stopped at £10,845 after income tax, NICs and council tax, but before housing benefit and tax credits.

It depends on a household's individual circumstances.

HB is dependent on the size of the property, the number in the household, the local housing allowance and other income.
Tax credits depends on size of family and wages.

Totem, thank you for the new bit of knowledge, I have not heard of NEA before. Anyway, 3 years of feeding somebody's dreams look toooo generous for me, 26 weeks, as in NEA scheme, is enough for a small enterprise.

Garlic, in the view of the new knowledge - if the government subsidises entrepreneurial attempts, why Jobcenter should not be checking how the business is going and whether there is any business at all?

I'm making the assumption that they do stay with him some of the time, so he would need the extra room for those occasions.

If it is so, and this is an archetypal benefit cut victim, I would agree with the previous speakers - so called "poor" in this country are not poor, and it is them, "poor", who are out of touch with reality.

Good night everyone.

Queen gets £5m pay rise from taxpayer - Grant to cover household running costs rises to £36.1m ? up from £31m in diamond jubilee year > Good to know. Wouldn't want her to go without...

www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=131071830409333&set=a.125327750983741.1073741826.125324827650700&type=1&theater

I agree running again. Hope I never have to live on £7.50 a day.

Yes little miss sarcastic I know people in that situation too! Lots of people out there don't believe people can be that 'poor'. Like lots in the government too. Think IDS lives off £255 per day.

IDS hsa been on state benefits twice by the way - first when he left the army and later when he was made redundant - his foolish fault because he is sexist and his wife is just a housewife which is always a silly decision for couples to take. However he does mean well and we certainly need to get a grip with this awful entitlement culture we seem to have developed. It is me me me and take take take.

I have signed but even if he did do it he'd be starting with an advantage because he already has a full wardrobe of lovely warm clothes and even if he moved into rented accommodation he would have warm bedding to take with him. Despite this, I think it would be a salutary experience and he would gain a painful insight. IMHO a month would be enough to drive the point home.

Many, many people have claimed benefits. (Can you still claim unemployment benefit if you have just left uni and live at home with your well heeled parents?) That is not the same as relying on benefits. I don't think IDS (along with many other politicians) even has to rely on his parliamentary salary to fund his lifestyle.

I am sure that IDS would be able to survive on £53 a week, as he would also, if push came to shove, be able to bake a cake or jump from a 7.5m diving board.

Would he, however, be prepared to pull all funding from his children's education (not sure how old they are), make them live in a damp house on an estate with high crime rates, stop all extra curricular activities and call a halt to Christmas, birthday presents and holidays? (Also taking into account that funding has been pulled from libraries, free swimming etc.) I wouldn't expect him to, after all he is just a politician, not Gandhi.

However, I also think he doesn't really know what he is talking about.

He only said he would survive on it if he had two and had two spells on benefits. We cannot as a nation even afford what we currently pay. It is very difficult for many people at present even those in full time work who receive no housing benefits.

He is someone whom most mumsnetters will like as he has a housewife at home like many mumsnetters are. A pro housewife old fashioned sexist. Many mumsnetters do not work or earn only pin money whilst a man or the state support them so they should find a true hero in IDS surely?

Oh go away and be deliberately insulting somewhere else. Your rudeness knows no bounds.

Yes you're very clever and earn a lot. We get it.

Sorry - should have ignored her.

We as a nation can afford what we currently pay - and in spades. The government created £375billion in so called 'quantitive easing' i.e. made up money, which they used to bail out the banks. The banks meanwhile, having had their fingers burned, are refusing to lend this.

If you don't we could create money, just think what would happen if there was a war. The government would ask the bankd of england to print money like a shot, gear up industry for production and get the economy on its feet again. As happened at the start of WW2.

It's not that we can't afford it; it is that Cameron and his ilk choose not to afford it. Cameron of course, didn't win the election, so he has no mandate for what he is doing. I just wish the other parties weren't so spineless and got together to call his bluff. But that's a discussion for a different post.

Should read, 'if you don't think we can create money......