IDS and poverty

David Cameron's decision to get Iain Duncan Smith to head a Commission to examine the causes of poverty shows that he isn't just copying Tony Blair's early years in power - it would have been like Blair asking Michael Foot to head a commission into the need to retain Britain's nuclear deterrent. I haven't yet read his report into 'Breakdown Britain', and so won't rule out the idea that some of its ideas are less self-evidently silly than the one that paying married couples more will help reduce poverty.

It is said that IDS genuinely cares about the problem of poverty. This is presumably in the same way that a creationist 'genuinely cares' about the scientific debate about evolution, i.e. in imposing their faith-based and wrong beliefs on the debate. While the Tories were in power, poverty increased massively, while their ministers claimed it had ceased to exist, even in spite of the existence of tax breaks for married couples.

Since Labour came to power it has fallen amongst children and pensioners, due to redistribution by the state. Given that these are facts which the Tories claim to accept, it would be a useful guide for their working group to produce a list of policies which Iain Duncan Smith supported during the 80s and 90s, but which he now realises led to an increase in poverty. I suspect that this will be a very short list, in that he still believes every last bit of Thatcherite and socially conservative ideology, and has ignored every bit of evidence which doesn't fit with this. Being a fair minded person, if anyone can provide any evidence to the contrary, I'd be very happy to correct this, but I won't be holding my breath.

UPDATE: This is really, really good