Having moved to Peebles in 2002, self-proclaimed ‘stooriefit’ Bosco Santimano gives us his own take on what he feels is the hot topic of the day. This week it’s Sir Ian Duncan Smith!
Recently after watching Episode III – Return of the Sith movie, from the Star Wars saga, I could not help compare the current frenzy of Brits in being deceived to take back the Empire from the evil bureaucrats sitting in Brussels. Hitler, Mussolini, Trump, Boris, Modi, etc. these names keep coming up where ever genocide against a minority or group has taken place or about to happen! The queen has decided to bestow upon her most loyal servant Ian Duncan Smith (IDS) a Knighthood in this year’s honours list. Remarkable selection! Considering that this individual is fully responsible for killing more poor and disabled people in peace time Britain in a very short time than anyone before him. Like the emperor character in Star Wars, the queen is rewarding her loyal followers with awards and a thank you for keeping the peasants and subjects in line while culling the so called “benefit scroungers”.
IDS is the architect and mastermind behind the worst policy in Britain whose sole objective was mass culling of people relying on benefits. The people who support the Tory party and its policies and who have now given them an unprecedented mandate to rule for another term will not be forgiven as this is just the beginning of the end of this cruel empire.
So what is so bad about his Universal Credit policy? Too many reasons to go into but let me focus on a few implications of this benefit change. This new benefit was first rolled out in April 2013 in one local authority area, Ashton instead of four originally planned. This already was a sign of things to come and the massive pain and suffering to millions of people as IDS kept going regardless, despite warnings from many respected and independent organisations like the Resolution Foundation claiming that the experiment to combine six very different benefits into one was a disaster waiting to happen. To make matters worse, the original estimated cost to the tax payers for the complete roll out of this fantasy and ego-maniacal policy was £2.2 billion but by August 2014 alone this estimated cost rose to £12.8 billion and was later increased to £15.8 billion!
Your guess is as good as mine as to what the current costs of this ego trip is? How do they get away with murder? In any other job or profession you would be sacked, thrown in to prison or worst case scenario not be employable ever again! But the Queen is in the habit of rewarding gross incompetence, negligence and in this case murder of many claimants who took their own lives while going through the Universal Credit process. We don’t seem to learn from our mistakes and I can only shudder to think what the state of many working class and poor people in this country will become after Brexit!
God save the people, not the queen!
Published in The Peeblesshire News on 17th January 2020.
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