Protecting Us From the Geologists

When the law disagrees with the brilliant Iain Duncan Smith, as we all know, the law must be wrong; particularly when it happens to be a law which originated with the brilliant Duncan Smith's own brilliant department. Last month the court of appeal ruled that the DWP's attempt to use the unemployed as a pretext for throwing money at profit-making companies was flawed, on the grounds that the DWP had not bothered to provide the said unemployed with sufficient information. As a result, the Government owes its victims something in the region of £550 each, which probably adds up to slightly less than the Government has thrown at the likes of Serco, ATOS Healthcare and Bob Diamond the Great and Powerful. Nevertheless, the brilliant Duncan Smith is introducing emergency legislation to protect the national economy by retroactively declaring himself to have been in the right all along, thereby following the Chancellor's example and forcing the costs of his incompetence onto the poor. Labour and the Liberal Democrats - the one-nation party and the party that takes the edge off Conservative nastiness - will be doing the expected thing.