More Than 460,000 People Have Now Signed The Petition Inviting Ids To Try And Live On £50 A Week.

[sandyRoe]

Have you signed?

[craft1948]

I am Mazie, but not as much as I used to be..............

[Dagman]

Typical, detached from reality politician's statement. He won't do it of course.

[jim360]

No, because it's never going to happen. As must as I think he's seriously wrong in saying what he did, I can't see the point in signing a petition that is 100% guaranteed to be ignored. It would be a stunt and one that would show nothing.

[Peter Pedant]

the link is here:

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week

on change org

I must say I signed up for it as soon as I heard and egged on my family


I had to make do with incapacity benefit - £94 every fortnight in 2001
and you know I think people who say they can do it - should try.

[jim360]

£53 a week after bills is doable. Before bills it is not. Sorry about your being on IB and again I bet it was extremely hard to live on.

Anyway no way IDS will say "yes" to this. He's just a berk.

[AlwaysConfused]

Yes, I signed after a previous link on here. I've survived on a lot less than that before, it ain't easy! I feel that one week would be too easy though. He should try at least 8 weeks.

[craft1948]

I don't think IDS is a berk, I actually think he is a very well-meaning chap. He just doesn't understand the real world sometimes.............

[emmie]

not many of them living in the real world i'm afraid.

[Kathyan]

No I haven't signed it and don't intend to either. Anyone can live on £53 a week, for one week. It wouldn't prove anything if he did it anyway.

[buildersmate]

"IDS, or any of the other politicians who actually have played at being poor, could never know the feeling".

Ha! - so that presumably goes for the whole of the Shadow Cabinet then - earning massive sums and then lecturing the Government about supporting their millionaire crony friends. How dare they, when they too 'haven't played at being poor', as you put it. Hypocrites, the whole lot of them, well on their way to becoming millionaires themselves.

No I'm not signing - it's a pathetic idea.

[lcg]

i did.....could do with a laugh! stick him on a rough london estate as well!!!! x

[lcg]

.....in a cold flat with basic stuff and no electric.....the mind boggles as to how to torture him.

[ladybirder]

Exactly bm.

[jim360]

I don't think IDS is a berk, I actually think he is a very well-meaning chap. He just doesn't understand the real world sometimes.............

Well-meaning perhaps, but I'm fairly confident in saying that most of the welfare reforms he implements will be repealed within the next decade or so. They just aren't going to work, and for all that he is well-meaning he's also deeply wrong on some of it. And, given some of his comments about graduates, and for that matter this story, very insensitive and completely unable to respect or understand the people he's trying to help.

[sandyRoe]

Buildersmate, there's a difference between IDS, and the other Tories who played at being poor for a week, and the members of the Shadow Cabinet. None of them, as far as I know, took up a challenge to live for a while on the amount they would get on benefits or ever were foolish enough to say they could live on £50 a week.
There's nothing wrong with rich politicians. But it's galling when one of them says to the poor, 'I could live on a pittance if I had to, so you can manage on a pittance too'.

[boxtops]

No, he won't do it anyway

[sandyRoe]

True, Boxtops, he won't. But the poor will.

[Canary42]

Yes