IDS at W&P Select Committee – Was it worth it??

By now you’ll have all read many accounts of how IDS performed at the Work & Pensions Select on Monday; how ‘he got way with it’, his choice use of language, his need for bodyguards etc.

It’s taken me until today to write my account, this is due in part to initial feelings of fury and outrage at his behaviour and the seeming inability of the Select members to nail him down; also the trip itself – a 220 mile round day trip to London with complimentary train tickets courtesy of The Mirror, which in regular circumstances is relatively easy and enjoyable, has left me feeling as if I’ve physically and mentally wrestled with dinosaurs!

Prior to gong into the Select Committee I met with Kate Green MP to get her views on the persistent misuse of statistics by IDS and his junior ministers; I was impressed by her clear understanding of the complexity of issues around misusing statistics, and how this has resulted in a press witch hunt against disabled people and the clear links to an increase in hate crime; she also spoke of her desire ensure this behaviour does not go unchallenged in the future. We went on to talk about the issues we as disabled people have experienced under the Coalition and I left her hopeful that we have a shadow minister who not only understands how we have been treated but who is determined to listen to and learn from us when writing her part of the Labour manifesto for 2015.

Leaving Kate my long suffering carer & I went to the 1st floor to the Wilson room where the Select was due to start; as we came out of the lift I had to hobble past IDS, Fraeud, the 2 Civil Servants due to give evidence, and a further 10 bodyguards and junior aides, none of whom moved or even acknowledged my existence, to join with fellow campaigners and journalists queueing to access the meeting. As we patiently waited, IDS refused to look in our general direction, he stood amid the huddle of bodies as if trying to seek shelter, in total contrast Fraud persistently shot looks across the top of our heads as if he wanted his glances to be bullets.

Inside the room IDS demeanour changed, he was on his turf, the playground of Politics, ready to hit back at all and any claims he was in any way wrong; begrudgingly I have to admit that he knows and can play what he clearly sees as his game; I can only liken it to a sporting match with the opponents knowing they have the ability to win but…fail to believe it.

The worse thing with this is whilst the opposition continue to act in this way IDS will continue being the bully boy and WE will keep paying the price; having watched this spectacle unfold I’m convinced there is only one thing we can do, we must make the opposition fear us more than they fear him. This requires all of US suffering and dying under the Policies and Cuts of IDS & Co to unite; to cause these peacocks realise just WHO is in it together and that WE have had enough. The reality is we’re Dying because of their game playing, so WHAT do we have to lose?

The Petition we, Debbie Sayers & I started, asked for the “Work & Pensions Select Committee to Hold IDS to account for his use of statistics“; well they tried but, as I ask in the title of this piece, was it worth it? I think it’s time for us to decide; today’s Mirror contains Ros Wynne Jones account of Monday and closes with something I said to her outside the Select “We haven’t got 18 months to wait for an election. I don’t want to think what the figures will be by then of how people are living, and even how many of us will be left. We’ll keep up the fight and keep campaigning. It doesn’t end here“; I am absolutely convinced this is true but now it’s over to you – Was It??