Iain Duncan Smith calls petition for him to live on £53 a week a stunt


Hardly likely. MP's get a fabulous redundancy package if they are ever voted out. It is equivalent to a years pay IIRC.

The problem is, IDS, people think you're a complete stunt

Didn't I read somewhere that the guy who challenged him is a drunken gambler?

How unlike many politicians...

This happened in the 1980s IIRC. A Tory minister said he could live on the benefit rate at the time, tried to, failed and resigned.

I'd tell you more but where I am this week has really crappy Internet connectivity, so someone else may have to do the leg work on this one.

Michael Portillo did it failed, but I am not sure about resigning. The government did then drop all pretext about how much was for clothes heating etc, as they would be shown to be fanciful at best. The fact that Michael Portillo actually did it was a great credit to him.

I doubt it. Especially now that people on benefits have to pay council tax which will take more than a pound out of that £53. Then add in the housing benefit changes and they could have even less.

I wish her luck with that, but I expect the parameters would be well defined so that success is easily achieved.

Hopefully she'll publish a full account of what the money was spent on.

I doubt it. If she did not have realistic conditions it would be ridiculed as a failure. Portillo moved into a bed sit with an electricity meter to make it realistic. Since Portillo attempt they dropped the breakdown so how would you account for things like clothing and which are not regular expenditure.

Edwina Curry isn't an MP any more remember and, frankly, there's no love lost between her and the current Tory party leadership. It's entirely possible that shoudl she do it she'll be completely up front about it as she's prety much got nothing to lose by doing so.

I have to say though, even if IDS or Curry does it, they'd still be missing the point. At the end of the day, they can do it for whatever limited period and then go back to their more privileged lives. They know they have escape, they have an exit strategy. When you're actually unemployed with no job prospects and living on £53 a week you think it won't ever stop, that it will just go on and on, grinding you down until there's nothing left. That's what drives people to all sorts of horrible, desperate things. That's why the petition is actually that IDS should do it for a year - it needs to be along enough period for it to actually feel like a hopeless position, not just a temporary ascetism to be endured then forgotten.

To quote a famous song




He won't do it of course, because he's an utterly pompous selfish inconsiderate ass. Unfortunately he's not even self-aware enough to realise that people think that of him.

Even a month would be enough to show low it is. A year is very long, if you just cope for one or two weeks it will be tough over a longer spell for those emergencies, which they ignore.

Surely the whole point of the system is to give a very basic level of income - so to encorange you to get a job

Afterall if you say £53 a week is not enough then what level would you have it at £75, £100, £200??

£500 a week I reckon.

Tom, that's more than I make now.
You've got my vote.