IDS’s latest bedroom tax strategy is all men are rapists!! by joehalewood
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IDS’s latest bedroom tax strategy is all men are rapists!!
by joehalewood
All
men are capable of rape therefore all men are rapists was one of the
strident assertions of the New York feminist movement in the early
1970's. Contrast that with what Iain Duncan Smith says about the bedroom
tax and I quote directly from a DWP argument put into the Upper
Tribunal which says: a. […]
a. the Government intended that all rooms that are capable of being used as a bedroom should be classified as such (see for instance DWP circular U6/2013);The absolute perversity of such a statement is lost on the DWP legal department. It is legally, economically. practically and politically perverse to say a room capable of being a bedroom is a bedroom.
- I can fit a mattress on my bath therefore its a bedroom.
- I can fit a single bed in my bathroom therefore it is a bedroom.
- I can fit a bed into my kitchen therefore it is a bedroom
- I can fit a bed in my living room therefore it is a bedroom
Just think reader social landlords have all along been charging tenants a rent level that is far too low and all local councils have been charging too little in council tax as they wrongly believed Acacia Avenue has 40 3 bed properties when it has 40 6 bed properties.
Even estate agents have been underselling the compact and bijou properties as being smaller than they are.
Of course this cannot go on and social landlords must reclassify all properties now as all living rooms are capable of being a bedroom and therefore are bedrooms.
The above DWP submission to the Upper Tribunal continues and says why IDS believes that all rooms capable of being bedrooms are bedrooms:
b. the effect of the First-tier Tribunal’s decision is that social security funds should be used to pay for claimants to have rooms to be used as [XYZ]. This clearly does not accord with the policy intention of the removal of the spare room subsidy, which is to reduce housing benefit expenditure and encourage more effective use of social housing stock;So the policy intention of saying that far more rooms are bedrooms is to REDUCE housing benefit expenditure? Yet if all rooms capable of being bedroom are bedrooms in the tortured mind of IDS then rents and housing benefit expenditure must INCREASE!
