Lord Nasty Freud of the Nasty Party

Lord Nasty Freud recently suggested that people with mental disabilities could be paid as little as £2 an hour at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham last month. That amounts to £4.50 less than the minimum wage of £6.50. Working on that level of pay a person would have an equivalent salary of £3900 per year for a 37.5 hour working week, which equates to a weekly wage of £75.

Lord Nasty Freud of the Nasty Party was, if you remember, the architect of the Bedroom Tax that has meant that many poor people, both unemployed and working, who unable to downsize to a smaller house and who have a spare bedroom are effectively being taxed to the tune of £15 per week. This tax has also affected the disabled and those with serious illnesses who need an extra room for medical equipment or whose houses have been especially adapted to their needs which just happen to have an extra bedroom.

Lord Nasty Freud is in charge of benefit reform for the David Cameron's Nasty party and comments like this need to be taken seriously, given his track record on the Bedroom tax and the Conservatives plans to cut benefits and introduce tax cuts for the rich. Clearly this was something he was or has thought about. You got go around even in a fringe meeting at a political conference saying such things and getting away from it.

Lord Nasty Freud has always taken a dim view of the disabled and those Out of work. His vision of welfare reform would see the removal of welfare benefits paid purely on the basis of need and the introduction of measures force people with disablities to enter employment or be subject to sanctions resulting in loss of benefits

His reforms to the Work Capability Assessments, which were introduced in 2013, for disabled welfare claimants were described by Professor Peter Beresford OBE, at Brunel University, as "reminiscent of the medical tribunals that returned shell shocked and badly wounded soldiers to duty in the first world war or the 'KV-machine', the medical commission the Nazis used in the second world war to reclassify wounded soilders as fit for the Eastern front'".

I guess it won't come as too much of a shock to know that Lord Nasty Freud was once an Investment Banker. While in the city he was, as Alexander Preston of the Spectator put it, a "key players in several of the most embarrassing and badly managed deals in investment banking history. So I guess it was only natural for him to join the Conservative party, be given a peerage a few months later and then become shadow minister for welfare in the House of Lords, and then being given the same job in government when the Conservatives came to power.

Today's revelation about what he said about the disabled surfaced at Prime Minsters questions time when it was raised as a question by labour leader Ed Miliband. The Prime Minster, David Cameron replied by saying of Lord Nasty Freud's remarks “Those are not the views of the government, they are not the views of anyone in the government. The minimum wage is paid to everybody, disabled people included.”. Later Ed Miliband retorted “In the dog days of this government the Conservative party is going back to its worst instincts – unfunded tax cuts, hitting the poorest hardest, now undermining the minimum wage. The nasty party is back.”

Shortly after Lord Nasty Freud was forced to issue an apology about the remarks he made and adding  “I was foolish to accept the premise of the question. To be clear, all disabled people should be paid at least the minimum wage, without exception, and I accept it is offensive to suggest anything else." But of course we all know what he is thinking now and no apology is ever going to change that fact.