The Conservatives are now "the party of the poor," Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has said. He told a meeting at the Tories' annual conference that his party, rather than Labour, had the best policies to tackle inequality. The previous government had spent "vast sums" but made the gap between rich and poor worse, he said. But Mr Duncan Smith conceded the coalition's changes would take a "little while" to bear results.
Addressing a meeting arranged by the Centre for Social Justice think-tank, which he himself established, the minister said: |
| Champion of the Poor - Just Like That! |
"We are the party focused on the poor, so it follows that you might legitimately say that we are the party of the poor."
Even though Labour had tried to lift people out of poverty, "some of the people in the people in the deepest poverty went backwards" under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, he added.
"Labour spent vast sums of money and left income inequality in the worst state since I have been born," said Mr Duncan Smith, who was Conservative leader from 2001 to 2003. Putting this right would be "like turning a supertanker around" and it was going to be a "little while" before the results of his policies became obvious. But he said the welfare-to-work programme and a plan for a Universal Benefit payments, due to start coming into effect in 2013, would succeed in getting more people into employment.
"Things the last government talked about we have managed to do," he claimed.
Adapted and edited from BBC NEWS here.
Well it turns out my long held belief that the Tory party represented those with money and the controlling interests of capital is in fact, wrong. Apparently they now represent the 'poor' or as Mr Duncan-Smith put it, they are focussed on the poor. They are focussed alright, focussed on taking even more from us and making sure we never get anywhere near the average MPs earnings, let alone become truly wealthy. The wealth-gap will always widen under a system designed to do just that. No, it's not me that's got it wrong, it is the system that allows such a disparity of wealth. And Mr Duncan-Smith is very, very wrong if he believes his own bull....
SussexSocialist
2 comments:
"...Party of the poor..." I'm stunned.
Appears the Tories (and Coalition Government) is now doing what has been so prevalent in America for decades: no mater what, simply tell people what they want to here. Doesn't matter if what one says is blatantly false or not; just keep repeating it.
Orwell's The Ministry of Truth......!
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