Secrets are sometimes necessary in politics. So is telling the truth but not the whole truth. What is never acceptable are lies. Especially from the leader of a party still in recovery from a predecessor who may have fatally wounded it by the tower of lies he built along the path which led to a million dead Iraqis and cascading extremism around the world.
Tuesday 19 March 2013 is a date that will sit high on the wall in the Labour Party’s hall of ignominy (and a big hall it is). A few weeks ago, Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson won a ruling in court that their work at Poundland under the Workfare programme, again forced and unpaid work, was illegal because they were not informed that they could refuse the work.
Thousands have suffered benefit loss for refusing unpaid work under the Workfare programme so the ruling indicated that these people, among the poorest in society, were entitled to a rebate of their benefits.
The Condems were furious with the courts for permitting benefit claimants some rights and choice. Iain Duncan Smith, the sad failure of a minister at the Department of Work and Pensions, brought emergency legislation before Parliament to reverse the court decision and deny the rebate of money to the poorest.