Universal credit? If Iain Duncan Smith is an architect of anything, it’s misery

Universal credit? If Iain Duncan Smith is an architect of anything, it’s misery | Marina Hyde

Only a dangerous politician favours simple fixes to complex problems – they have a way of causing hardship to millions

If you were looking for the most wantonly sarcastic epithet in British politics, you might well alight on “Iain Duncan Smith, the architect of universal credit”. It’s basically impossible to say out loud without putting “architect” in air quotes. I know we shouldn’t underestimate the determination of a quiet man. But when people say, “Iain always brings the house down”, what they mean is that everyone gets buried in the rubble.

Would you stay in a hotel that advertised Iain Duncan Smith as its architect? You certainly wouldn’t bother asking when breakfast was served. If things went well, you’d be standing outside in a foil blanket at 3am, rebuffing requests to do 10 minutes at the top of Good Morning Britain. If things went as expected, you wouldn’t.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2QNqMKD

Comments

REPORT: Furious Spike Lee Paces Aisle, Turns Back To Stage...

REPORT: Furious Spike Lee Paces Aisle, Turns Back To Stage... (Top headline, 5th story, link ) Related stories: REVIEW: Hostless Show Starts With Rock & Rolls Off Rails... Actor knocks borders, walls during speech in Spanish... Stage designed to look like Trump hair? 'GREEN BOOK' OVERCOMES BACKLASH, NABS BEST PICTURE... Top Critics Fume... LIST: WINNERS... Advertise here from Drudge Report Feed https://ift.tt/2SUpIKy

Tiny Love Stories: ‘Who Was I to Deprive Him of Joy?’

By Unknown Author from NYT Style https://ift.tt/2UV7YAG

The Ugly History of Dual-Loyalty Charges

When Representative Ilhan Omar recently complained about “the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” many noted accurately that she had deployed a trope—dual loyalty—that had been used against Jews for years. But this accusation has a broader history in the United States, having been used against several religious minorities—including Muslims like Omar. Indeed, many battles over religious freedom have revolved around dual-loyalty claims. [ Read: Ilhan Omar just made it harder to have a nuanced debate about Israel ] In the 19th century, many attacks on Catholics stressed that these immigrants were pawns of a foreign power. In the 1830s, Samuel Morse—then a prominent painter and later the inventor of the telegraph—urged Americans to build “walls” and “gates” to keep out Catholic immigrants, who would always be loyal to Rome. Because these Catholic immigrants were decrepit —“halt, and blind, and naked”—they were easy to co...

KnightViral

Search This Blog