Duncan Smith stops the poor 'inheriting the Earth'

Who would have thought we would now be looking back fondly on those days?

It seems the bugger never shuts up now and each pronouncement is more invidious than the last.

"I am Tory - hear me roar!"

Once a Nosferatu-like presence scurrying from the light in the corridors of Westminster, he appears to have undergone a remarkable transformation. Unfortunately he's turned into King Herod.

Speaking this week IDS - short for Irritable Dole Syndrome - flesh-ed out his knee-jerk proposals to curb benefits for people with too many kids.

The Work and Pensions Secretary condemning the "madness" of the state subsidising poor families who have large numbers of children.

Employing the rule of inverse logic - as one must any time a politician opens their mouth - when a Tory declares something "mad" it generally means it's reasonable and decent.

He said it would be fairer to the "vast majority" of responsible taxpayers if benefits were limited to the first two children in future.

Malthus came out with the exact same argument - proposing that the poor be allowed to starve to deal with overpopulation in the 18th century.

And it's been used by racist bigots ever since, so it's not really a surprise that the Tories continue to spout it.

Half of them still think the Earth's flat so this probably counts as cutting-edge radical thinking.

But...

Two points here.

Firstly Duncan Smith has FOUR kids and is subsidised by the the public purse to the tune of £65,738 a year plus expenses - and we all know how they can add up...

And secondly, he's a devout Catholic and therefore presumably doesn't believe in birth control.

Malthus, like Duncan Smith, professed to be a man of God - he was in fact a clergyman - because obviously when the bible says the meek will inherit the earth and that it's easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, it's open to interpretation.

It's funny how the bible is the irrefutable word of the Almighty, until it disagrees with you...

Duncan Smith's proposals reflect a peculiarly Tory outlook.

"How can we slash another £10 billion from the welfare bill?

"I know, let's starve children to death. That way they won't grow up to sign on the dole."

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme ahead of a speech on the issue the minister said he was tackling an "ingrained culture."

So a bit like MPs fiddling their expenses then.

"We have accepted for far too long in this country that it is possible for people to just stay on benefits and we write them off," he said.

By calling them scroungers...

Duncan Smith seems to be the only politician in history to be actively doing himself out of a job. He's Work and Pensions Minister and thanks to him and his cronies there's no work and most of us will never get a pension.

Job done! He can retire.

And speaking of equality issues, that other star in the Tory firmament Andrew Lansley girded his loins this week and waded into the battle.

In a bizarre soundbite he hailed the landmark Supreme Court victory by former women employees of Birmingham City Council by evoking the memory of the historic Ford equality dispute and declared it a "Made in Dagenham moment."

This from the bloke who seemed to want to run the NHS like The Only Way Is Essex.