Who will head the DWP?

Who will be the new DWP Minister and be tasked with delivering to proposed twelve million in benefit cuts is the next question? With Esther McVey out of the way it is hard to think of whom might take on the position, or let alone want the job?

Esther McVey was meant to be a counter-balance to the ‘posh boys’ Cameron and Osbourne. In fact she was universally hated in many quarters. She even took a lot of the ‘heat’ from the equally unloved, Ian Duncan Smith.

The former employment minister was behind in the polls for most of the General Election race against candidate Ms Greenwood. Turnout was a huge 75.86%, up from 71.52% in 2010 with 42,008 people voting out of a possible 55,377. The result came late and was finally declared following a recount.

Speaking after defeat in what she described as a "brutal" campaign, Ms McVey said: "I'm proud I was part of a government that was helping turn the country around. The public are more likely to remember her for the marathon ‘washing machine’ efforts, as she tried to spin the facts and avoid giving direct answers at the DWP Benefit Sanctions hearings when challenged about suicides.

As a Tory poster girl she even appeared on the front page of the Conservative manifesto.  McVey was supposed to be the image of a Conservative party transformed and ready to win more seats in the north.

It’s likely she would have shouldered the blame for her government’s cuts regardless of her ministerial position, but becoming an employment minister was not a good place to be if you wanted to win popularity.

She did not seem to represent women very well either. Most men might hope that women bring a more caring perspective to politics, and both men and women don’t generally warm to women who have a ‘hard boiled’ image.

Anti-McVey campaigners overstepped the mark with a nasty graffiti attack on a job centre branding her a “murderer”. She create a lot of hate possibly because people expect the posher elements of the Conservative Party to behave badly towards the despised underclass, but here is someone from the working classes, who ought to know better, behaving even worse.

Although Esther McVey wants a comeback in politics, it hardly looks promising.

As for Ian Duncan Smith (IDS) who has targeted the disabled with the fanaticism of Mathew Hopkins (c. 1620 – 12 August 1647) the self-styled ‘Witchfinder General’ – along with help from George Osborne, IDS really gave the ‘Nasty Party’ its image. The fact Duncan Smith was low profile during the election, points to the fact the Conservatives were well aware that it was a potentially damaging image.

A lot of Ian Duncan Smiths schemes were frankly a bit of a disaster, and Universal Credit – a good idea in principal – has still to become fully functioning. The Poundland case saw many Companies distancing themselves from the Work Programme, and saw one amazing plucky female, taking on the might of the DWP and winning.

Over 2,300 people died waiting for disability appeals to be heard and of course there were a large number of suicides; a Claimant who starved to death, and another that died the day after being declared as fit to work.

Ian Duncan Smith was caught quoting statistics that were claimed to be made up, and even his CV, analysed by the BBC showed traits of this ‘creativity’ when it came to the facts.

If Cameron wants to distance himself from the image that comes with all this, perhaps is the time to choose someone less fanatical, better educated, and with a more balanced view. We must wait and see.