Yesterday in the den of dishonesty and inequity which serves us the British seat of democracy a Tory Minister almost caused the roof to cave in.
Against all the guidelines and memos on Ministerial behaviour from the Civil Service high heid yins Amber Rudd in Parliament was forced to utter words of truth in response to consistent questioning and pressure from opposition MP’s to admit that the disastrous Universal Credit scheme has caused massive increases in the use of food banks among the victims of the Universal Credit rollout.
In every area where it has been piloted increased hardship, food bank reliance, rent arrears and despair has followed. In reality the smug and conceited mastermind of this disaster, former Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, should be arrested, charged with wilful deceit of the public and ordered to pay back the billions he has cost the taxpayer with his fanciful lies and distortions of reality.For the billions of pounds overspent on his scheme he should be charged with criminal negligence and fraud. He has cost the public purse at least £13 billion and should be held to account for that.
Austerity wasn’t necessary or economically driven it was politically selected to defend the rich criminals from the crimes they had committed and deflect the pain onto the poor. 120,000 premature deaths was one of the costs and these politicians should be held to account for their criminal negligence.
The story of Amber Rudd’s rare utterance of truth dominated the news bulletins last night and occupies much space across the mainstream newspapers. What didn’t feature was the chilling Bloomberg Report under the heading: “Austerity to Continue for Most U.K. Government Departments”.
Iain Duncan Smith and the other chiefs who designed and implemented the welfare and service cuts should be criminally held to account for their crimes against society and the poor.
However here in Scotland we have a possible lifeboat to save us from the sinking HMS Britannia. Independence is our lifeboat. I implore the SNP led government to launch that lifeboat by using their democratic mandate for IndyRef2 as soon as possible and definitely within this calendar year.