Ian Duncan Smith - How Does He Keep His Job?

[Gromit]

// IDS benefits plan in such chaos it's classed as beyond failure

Iain Duncan Smith’s flagship welfare reform is going so badly that a watchdog has had to a create a whole new category to describe its failures.
The Work and Pensions Secretary’s scheme to replace six separate benefits with a single Universal Credit was sent back to the drawing board last year following serious delays and cost overruns. //

ttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2637895/A-good-day-ministers-bury-bad-news-IDS-benefits-plan-chaos-classed-failure.html

A bit scathing from the Mail, it must be bad.

[Kromovaracun]

Iain Duncan Smith is a lying, incompetent, pathetic train-wreck of a human being. How he even got near political office in the first place is beyond me.

[jim360]

No don't hold back, Kromo, say what you really think...

[mikey4444]

Kromo...you will have to stop being so shy and retiring !

You are right of course but if I had posted that, I would have been accused of "spinning"

[Gromit]

IDS never fought a general election as Conservative leader. No sooner had they elected him, they began to realise their terrible mistake and they gathered a list declaring no confidence in him and he was swiftly removed. His tenure was very short, yet he remains like a bad smell from the drains.

UKiP would do well to target his seat.

[naomi24]

Mikey, //if I had posted that, I would have been accused of "spinning" //

No you wouldn't. That's not spinning. It's a personal opinion.

[Quizmonster]

In his army career, IDS reached the dizzy heights of Captain...ie junior officer. For some incomprehensible reason, the Tories later elected him as leader. (Presumably he was just the best man for the job, which speaks volumes for the rest.) In that role, even when he "turned up the volume", you could still barely even hear him! Like Thatcher before him, he was finally 'defenestrated'. And still he is here to plague the poor and sick among us this time around.
The only explanation I can think of for his still remaining in the current post he holds is that "he knows where the bodies are buried" in some way. How else would he be allowed to tell Cameron, "No, I'm not going" when offered a new cabinet post?

[Kromovaracun]

The IDS leadership was the political equivalent of having a really desperate drunken one-night-stand with someone you hate who then completely misinterprets the meaning and refuses to stop calling you.

[Kromovaracun]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil's_Tune

[New Judge]

"Like Thatcher before him, he was finally 'defenestrated'..."

Yes he may have also been defenestrated, QM, but I think there the similarity ends. Mrs T was thrown out of the window after twelve years as PM having successfully fought three general elections.. IDS lasted two years and fought only local elections (in which, it has to be said, the Conservatives made considerable gains).

I don't quite agree that he is "plaguing the sick and the poor". It is the government's policies that are doing that (if indeed that is the correct term). IDS is simply trying to implement them. He's not succeeding very well because the changes are not radical enough. They still leave the benefits system an unmitigated shambles.

[jim360]

That's a bad analysis of the problem, I think. If anything, IDS isn't doing very well because the changes are far too radical, at east at the moment. The UK economy is still not exactly brilliant, and while unemployment is falling it is doing so from a rather high point due to the massive rise in 2008-2011. That makes it just a bad time to basically tear up the benefits book and start over.

Oh, and at the same time as he's trying to implement these major reforms, his department is suffering severe staffing cuts. So in summary, IDS is trying to achieve too much, with too little money, and too few staff to help that happen.

Oh, and he's no good at listening to advice, either.

[Quizmonster]

NJ, when I used the phrase "like Thatcher before him" re IDS, I meant solely in the sense that they shared a like fate...ie were figuratively 'chucked out of the window' by the very people who gave them the job.

As for his "trying to implement" government policy, I doubt - given his record in various career/life situations he he could implement an act of congress in a bordello!