Iain Duncan Smith really is an arse isn't he?

[MaryMotherOfCheeses]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21490542

"The next time somebody goes in - those smart people who say there's something wrong with this - they go into their supermarket, ask themselves this simple question, when they can't find the food they want on the shelves, who is more important - them, the geologist, or the person who stacked the shelves?"

There is so much wrong with this that I can't even begin. [cross]

Commenting further on the case, Mr Duncan Smith said: "I understand she said she wasn't paid. She was paid jobseeker's allowance, by the taxpayer, to do this.

Someone needs to remind him that we have a National Minimum Wage in this country. He seems to have forgotten.

The next time I want to take my son to a museum so that he can learn about the planet we live on, but they've closed the gallery due to cost cutting, at least I'll know that the supermarkets are making a bigger profit due to all this free labour.

He's just so stupid That's what I can't get over, that all these clever Oxbridge-educated Tories can't see the sheer idiocy of these schemes.

Can't see link....

What is this thread about?

link again

Thanks

"An employed shelf-stacker is doing more for the country than an unemployed geologist."

She was volunteering in a museum.

Museum volunteers are very important. They help on the collections and provide additional resource to organisations which are usually charities and under constant threat of cuts themselves.

Pah. She needs to understand market economics.

'companies have to make arrangements around it, then if you don't do this you may suffer a benefit withdrawal because you have messed them around and they are therefore going to suffer as a result of that.'

he really means that the huge company will miss out on their slave labour

he wants the poor to suffer alright

Supermarkets are making humongous profits, I don't see why I, as a tax payer, should subsidise their profits. The least they can do is pay their staff the minimum wage.

So he doesn't like the judges ruling on this, the law of the land went against him....

Out of touch and law breaker

yes, he is.

Oh Rhiannon I am exhausted by the ignorant nonsense you post on each and every benefits thread. I desperately need a hide poster button just for you.

He was on the Andrew Marr show this morning. I would have thrown stuff at the tv if it hasn't meant I could actually possibly break it.

An employed shelf stacker may be a good thing indeed. But a free shelf stacker costing the supermarket nothing devalues not only the shelf stacker in question but every other shelf stacker who rightly expects to be paid the national minimum wage for doing their job!!!
This unemployed graduate dud not turn down a job stacking shelves. She turned down the obligation to work at no cost to the supermarket when she needed that time to apply for paying jobs and do voluntary work that would give her new and valuable skills and experience.

Perhaps IDS doesn't understand the contribution to the economy from all those mining, oil, gas companies who frankly, would be a bit buggered without geologists.

I have an engineering degree, but the first job I took after graduating was in a department store. It took me until the April after graduation to find an engineering job.

It never occurred to me that I shouldn't be a shop girl for those months. I think my future employers appreciated that I had a work ethic.

Gosh Mary, have not seen you posting for ages.
How are you?
(Current apoplexy aside)

Knowsabitabouteducation - did you earn more from shelf stacking than being on the dole?

Obviously BP, Shell etc don't see the value of this particular geology graduate either. I imagine they collectively took on some graduates though - but this particular one didn't shine to the same extent.

But if you want to work in geology, volunteering in a museum does demonstrate a work ethic. Just as much as having a job in a shop.

It's not an either / or issue. It's not about one being better than the other. They are both perfectly valid things to do and IDS is being an arse for thinking that the general public do not appreciate this.

I'm doing good thanks Moondog but am currently a little bit rattled

I've never shelf-stacked nor been on the dole, but given the choice, I would always chosen to have worked so that I could build up skills and experience.