Horrible, cynical politics

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I know politics is a horrible world, but the furore over the comments of Lord Freud really does take the biscuit.

BBC News - Welfare minister apologises for disability pay comments
Labour has called on the Conservative peer to resign after he said some workers were "not worth the full wage".

So let me get this straight.

These are comments made off the cuff, in direct conversation with a father who was asked about whether people like his disabled son - who he desperately believed would benefit from working - could get an exemption to the minimum wage to encourage employers to take him on.

So the minister thinking out loud, which is specifically what he said, wondered whether there may be some way where the benefits system could make up the difference if the minimum wage could be relaxed for a small group of people.

I really feel sorry for this guy and how he has been so horribly misrepresented. Watching Newsnight with the oh so pompous and obvious tory-hating disabled lady making hay with this. And similar things on the 6 O'clock and Ch4 news shows.

The Adam Smith institute have come out in support of Freud, and their statement is very well put.

“Lord Freud has been shamefully mistreated by Ed Miliband. His point was that the market value of some people’s wages is below the minimum wage. This is often true of the severely disabled and can have appalling consequences for their self-esteem and quality of life. Fixing this problem was the justification for Remploy, a government-funded firm that gave jobs to disabled people who could not find work elsewhere.

To point out that someone’s market value is less than minimum wage has nothing to do with their moral value as human beings. Freud’s point was that we should help people in this situation by allowing them to find jobs paying below the minimum wage and topping up their pay directly to make up the difference.

Even if you don’t agree with this method, it is motivated by compassion for the disabled and an understanding of the unpleasant side-effects of our minimum wage laws. Freud’s only crime was to speak bluntly: it is disgraceful to use his words against him in the way Miliband has.”

And the best thing coming out of this? Labour supported exactly this policy when they were in office!

Labour Backed £4-a-Day Pay for Mentally Disabled - Guy Fawkes' blog
In 2003 the Labour government supported allowing some companies to pay people with mental health problems £4-a-day to man assembly lines. A government paper from when Patricia Hewitt was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, which argues that that some so-called “therapeutic work” should not qualify for the minimum wage. It proposed an organisation which “runs a facility for mental health out patients, who do various activities such as packing and assembly can“pay varying amounts up to £20 per week, so long as “if [workers] do not attend there are no sanctions”. The government paper concludes that under such an arrangement “there would probably not be an employer/worker relationship” and therefore “the national minimum wage would not apply. Ironically the likes of Scope, Mencap and the TUC were consulted during the preparation of the document. Ed Miliband today called for the resignation of a government minister for suggesting something not nearly as draconian…

And yet such is the furore and so afraid are our politicians over anything which could possibly be misconstrued as attacking the disabled, that he has profoundly apologised.

You really couldn't make it up.

I'm embarrassed that our politics has become like this. For Labour making such a nakedly cynical manoeuvre, or the tories for so timidly accepting it and apologising.
 
Pay law triggers job cuts for disabled people | UK news | The Guardian

An estimated 1,000 people with severe learning disabilities have lost their part-time jobs or had their working hours cut as a direct result of the national minimum wage, the charity Mencap says today.
Many employers have felt unable to pay the £3.60 an hour minimum to disabled people previously paid small sums for work that had low output but high therapeutic value. Other companies are paying the rate, but have reduced people's hours to keep costs constant.
Mencap, which otherwise strongly supports the minimum wage, calls for an urgent revision of the rules to enable such low output work to be classified as "special placements" exempt from the statutory provision.


Worked for Labour too:

David Freud, Baron Freud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I know politics is a horrible world, but the furore over the comments of Lord Freud really does take the biscuit.

BBC News - Welfare minister apologises for disability pay comments
Labour has called on the Conservative peer to resign after he said some workers were "not worth the full wage".

So let me get this straight.

These are comments made off the cuff, in direct conversation with a father who was asked about whether people like his disabled son - who he desperately believed would benefit from working - could get an exemption to the minimum wage to encourage employers to take him on.

So the minister thinking out loud, which is specifically what he said, wondered whether there may be some way where the benefits system could make up the difference if the minimum wage could be relaxed for a small group of people.

I really feel sorry for this guy and how he has been so horribly misrepresented. Watching Newsnight with the oh so pompous and obvious tory-hating disabled lady making hay with this. And similar things on the 6 O'clock and Ch4 news shows.

The Adam Smith institute have come out in support of Freud, and their statement is very well put.

“Lord Freud has been shamefully mistreated by Ed Miliband. His point was that the market value of some people’s wages is below the minimum wage. This is often true of the severely disabled and can have appalling consequences for their self-esteem and quality of life. Fixing this problem was the justification for Remploy, a government-funded firm that gave jobs to disabled people who could not find work elsewhere.

To point out that someone’s market value is less than minimum wage has nothing to do with their moral value as human beings. Freud’s point was that we should help people in this situation by allowing them to find jobs paying below the minimum wage and topping up their pay directly to make up the difference.

Even if you don’t agree with this method, it is motivated by compassion for the disabled and an understanding of the unpleasant side-effects of our minimum wage laws. Freud’s only crime was to speak bluntly: it is disgraceful to use his words against him in the way Miliband has.”

And the best thing coming out of this? Labour supported exactly this policy when they were in office!

Labour Backed £4-a-Day Pay for Mentally Disabled - Guy Fawkes' blog
In 2003 the Labour government supported allowing some companies to pay people with mental health problems £4-a-day to man assembly lines. A government paper from when Patricia Hewitt was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, which argues that that some so-called “therapeutic work” should not qualify for the minimum wage. It proposed an organisation which “runs a facility for mental health out patients, who do various activities such as packing and assembly can“pay varying amounts up to £20 per week, so long as “if [workers] do not attend there are no sanctions”. The government paper concludes that under such an arrangement “there would probably not be an employer/worker relationship” and therefore “the national minimum wage would not apply. Ironically the likes of Scope, Mencap and the TUC were consulted during the preparation of the document. Ed Miliband today called for the resignation of a government minister for suggesting something not nearly as draconian…

And yet such is the furore and so afraid are our politicians over anything which could possibly be misconstrued as attacking the disabled, that he has profoundly apologised.

You really couldn't make it up.

I'm embarrassed that our politics has become like this. For Labour making such a nakedly cynical manoeuvre, or the tories for so timidly accepting it and apologising.

It was how he said it that has caused offence.
Off the cuff or not, when you are the minister in charge of Welfare reforms you really need to take care what you say and how it will be taken.
 
Well the father of the kid they were talking about was not offended. It was him who brought up that the minimum wage should be relaxed.

Wonder when the calls will come for him to be sacked?

I think really all this minister is guilty of is being a conservative. Seems everyone with an axe to grind is jumping on this bandwagon.
 
He put his comments his thoughts out there and in true nature of freedom of speech the reaction to his comment's and his thoughts has been rightly shot down, he may loose his job over it being a welfare reform minister, likely no fuss if he'd been a Banking reform minister, hes not going to prison for letting the mask slip.

Note's to his boss skill match! Its also now tedious you bringing out your family every time this thorny issue rises you are not the only family that has to cope with disability grow a pair.

We used to have something called remploy until very recently that also gave people self esteem through work?
 
Yes, we used to have remploy until it was closed by Labour.

Of course the concept of Remploy was to provide jobs that the open market would not give some people. The rationale for Labour closing it was that the resources freed up could be better used on a wider basis and not just on the minority who lived near and managed to get a job in Remploy.

What Freud said was one way to use those resources. Let people be paid less if they want and have the difference made up with benefits.

Your comments re Cameron. Disgusting. Telling someone who's child died to grow a pair is beyond contempt.
 
Well the father of the kid they were talking about was not offended. It was him who brought up that the minimum wage should be relaxed.

Wonder when the calls will come for him to be sacked?

I think really all this minister is guilty of is being a conservative. Seems everyone with an axe to grind is jumping on this bandwagon.

If it was a private conversation that wasn't recorded and no one took offence then we wouldn't have heard about it.
However, this was in the public arena and by the Minister in charge of Welfare reform.
Consider the fact that many people with disabilities have felt targeted and vilified by the way politicians, the media and the public have responded to the perception of benefit cheats being a bigger problem than they are in reality.

In 2010, Church groups and organisations complained about Freud and Osborne stating that:
"misrepresentation" and "exaggeration" of fraud in welfare claims that had the effect of stigmatising the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

In 2013, Freud attempted to explain the rise in the number of people using Food banks as people taking advantage of free food rather than actually needing it due to the effects of welfare reforms.

When you put his previous comments and actions into context with the situation many disabled people find themselves in today and his comment on some people "not being worth the minimum wage", it is hardly surprising that many people took offence. Especially as he is in charge of the state and opertunities that many disabled people find themselves in with regards to society.
 
Thanks for making my point TB. A classic example of how this is just a cynical ploy by the usual squad to take any opportunity to bash the tories.

Not one word actually discussing what he actually said and the context in which it was said? No, it's all about "but he is a tory, and the tories always do and say nasty things. Boooooooooooooooo!".
 
Another good article on the reality of what Freud said.

Lord Freud was right and Miliband shameful » Spectator Blogs

Lord Freud, a businessman turned welfare advisor to Tony Blair turned Tory minister, made this point at a fringe event at the recent Tory conference. He suggested that we could allow firms to employ severely disabled people at below the minimum wage.

He also said we should use something like the Universal Credit financial-support scheme to make up the difference – although this has been much less widely reported. That would allow firms to hire severely disabled people without making a loss while guaranteeing they would still take home a decent wage.
 
If the father involved in the conversation directly with the man took no offence to what he was saying, then this smacks of people being offended on behalf of others. I can't stand that kind of nonsense where people look for a reason to feel insulted about something.
 
I don't care if the kid's father was offended or not. It's the "I have a gay friend and he's fine with section 28" argument.

The reason why Lord Freud came under fire is because there's huge difference between having a debate on the issue of employer incentives to encourage them to employ more disabled people and just nonchalantly agreeing to sentiment that they're not "worth" minimum wage
 
Yes, we used to have remploy until it was closed by Labour. Of course the concept of Remploy was to provide jobs that the open market would not give some people. The rationale for Labour closing it was that the resources freed up could be better used on a wider basis and not just on the minority who lived near and managed to get a job in Remploy. What Freud said was one way to use those resources. Let people be paid less if they want and have the difference made up with benefits.

The last Remploy factory closed last October 2013 I dont remeber Labour being in power then enlighten me more. So State funded employment.

Your comments re Cameron. Disgusting. Telling someone who's child died to grow a pair is beyond contempt.

It’s put into the public forum by Cameron himself, I’ve heard it twice in as many weeks, once at his conference and again yesterday, its brought into the public domain very often. If he wants to use his life experiences to defend a Lord who has a habit of running his mouth off that’s up to him, does that mean we can’t question him and his party motives?

I never heard Brown in his darkest days as Labour PM use being partly blind, the loss of a child only days after she was born, then had another diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. He was just useless puppet like his predecessor.
 
I don't care if the kid's father was offended or not. It's the "I have a gay friend and he's fine with section 28" argument.

The reason why Lord Freud came under fire is because there's huge difference between having a debate on the issue of employer incentives to encourage them to employ more disabled people and just nonchalantly agreeing to sentiment that they're not "worth" minimum wage

Perhaps I'm being overly generous but I would ascribe that to a slip of the tongue during a personal conversation, and not a deeply held belief which he should be castigated for holding. Appreciate that politicians are held to higher standards than the average person but they're human too and sometimes the words just don't come out right. I don't care one way or the other but the way it is being discussed smacks of a witch hunt to me.
 
The last Remploy factory closed last October 2013 I dont remeber Labour being in power then enlighten me more. So State funded employment.
Perhaps look a bit further.

This was a labour party policy, started in 2008 when they closed 28 remploy centres.

In the same way, labour party proposals in 2004 were to exempt some disabled from the minimum wage. Just as mencap themselves had advocated in 2000.

Perhaps they should be calling for themselves to be sacked?

Isn't it strange all these horrible things the tories get flak over were fine and not worthy of comment when labour did the same?
 
Perhaps look a bit further.

This was a labour party policy, started in 2008 when they closed 28 remploy centres.

In the same way, labour party proposals in 2004 were to exempt some disabled from the minimum wage. Just as mencap themselves had advocated in 2000.

Perhaps they should be calling for themselves to be sacked?

Isn't it strange all these horrible things the tories get flak over were fine and not worthy of comment when labour did the same?

Take it from 2013 2012 2011 2010 etc Take it all the way back and blame Thatcher if you like, Conservative minds normally do! The fact of the matter is Government cuts benefits to people who have disabilities, check out any Impact assessments by the DWP and is now looking for ways to circumvent minimum wage. Noted you did not want to answer my actual question in pervious post, however I draw a line under your personalization.
 
Noted you did not want to answer my actual question in pervious post, however I draw a line under your personalization.

What question? Genuinely, I can't see any question for me in any of your previous posts.

Also don't think I have personalised this. Unless you think having it pointed out that attacking the tories for policies that previously were proposed or enacted by Labour is a bit rich when they don't get the same criticism. (Or when they are the ones on the attack).

I note AGAIN that still nobody is actually talking about what Freud actually did say. Yet again it is all nasty tories and ATOS, nasty tories and Remploy, and the usual deflection.
 
I don't care one way or the other but the way it is being discussed smacks of a witch hunt to me.

I would agree, but bare in mind that a witch hunt is exactly how many people on benefits including the disabled feel is being carried out against them by the politicians ... and especially people like Freud who is in charge of the benefit reforms.
Speaking as someone who has first hand experience of the system and it's 'new' approach, I can say that I am going to be particularly biased because of they way I, like many others have been treated and made to feel unworthy.
 
Your questions Dandy, were:

1)
We used to have something called remploy until very recently that also gave people self esteem through work?

Yes, but it's a statement with a question mark at the end of it so it didn't really need answering, particularly as Remploy was already mentioned in post Number #1 by Squiffy.


2)
If he wants to use his life experiences to defend a Lord who has a habit of running his mouth off that’s up to him, does that mean we can’t question him and his party motives?
If you want, feel free, although I think this was a fairly rhetorical question too, like your first one. I don't see any questions that Squiffy needed to respond to.

Do try and base your comments about Freud on what he really said rather than the media headlines though.
 
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I’m taking his comments in the context of what the current Government has and is implementing also how Cameron goes about defending welfare policy and whatever his current cad has blurtted out which I find extremely cynical and calculating and its sole purpose is to shut down debate. What is there to say about Lord Freud, he is a Prat of Politics just as he was in Business and has been caught out. Following headlines hey I could start pulling very selective dates off Google to back up my political beliefs or disciple for Messiah Nelson, but I won’t.
 
Err, OK...
I was hoping you might have conceded that you didn't ask a question Squiffy could have responded to, but let's roll with this ;)
 
I’m taking his comments in the context of what the current Government has and is implementing also how Cameron goes about defending welfare policy and whatever his current cad has blurtted out which I find extremely cynical and calculating and its sole purpose is to shut down debate. What is there to say about Lord Freud, he is a Prat of Politics just as he was in Business and has been caught out. Following headlines hey I could start pulling very selective dates off Google to back up my political beliefs or disciple for Messiah Nelson, but I won’t.

So you aren't talking about his comments at all, just using it as a pretext to reinforce your previous grievances with the tories?

Is anyone prepared to discuss what he actually said and it's context? Or are you all going to continue to moan about the nasty tories and just use this blatantly misrepresented set of comments as a basis to justify your existing bias?
 
Is anyone prepared to discuss what he actually said and it's context? Or are you all going to continue to moan about the nasty tories and just use this blatantly misrepresented set of comments as a basis to justify your existing bias?

No. Why? Because no one is moaning about the nasty Tories in this thread and any discussion will be used to justify your existing bias.

Unemployment for the disabled is about 50 per cent and the welfare minister states there’s a reason for that - it’s because they’re not worth the money. His solution is to allow companies to pay less than the minimum wage so they’ll be worth it.

He has made a full apology for saying disabled people are not worth the minimum wage.

A witch hunt is now in progress to see him sacked by taking his words out of context and skewing them.

However, this is not the first time Freud has opened his mouth before engaging brain and I notice the Tory party is standing back and putting some distance between themselves and Lord Freud's opinion.
 
Unemployment for the disabled is about 50 per cent and the welfare minister states there’s a reason for that - it’s because they’re not worth the money. His solution is to allow companies to pay less than the minimum wage so they’ll be worth it. While receiving additional funding from the government.

I'm sure it is a simple matter of fatigue experienced at 3.00am that you forgot this bit. Couldn't possibly be your own bias.
 
Well question time there was almost an uprising against labour who used this to do some point scoring and call for his head.

It appears, the audience at least, were well aware what she was trying, she held her ground like a good foot soldier though. I can't recall the crowd shouting down a panelist though, especially over what is a pretty niche issue, but I try not to watch the blood pressure program.

it appears labour had the tape for sometime, probably kept it back so as to have something to say at PMQ's and also as a distraction for Milliband at PMQ's to avoid talking about forgetting stuff in his speech.
 
I'm sure it is a simple matter of fatigue experienced at 3.00am that you forgot this bit. Couldn't possibly be your own bias.

If you are sure then there is nothing more to say. Also the bit you tacked on the end of my post shows your own bias whilst it has nothing to do with Freud's comments.

Funny you missed out the rest of my post - I wonder why?
 

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