Iain Duncan Smith was famous, or should I say infamous, for claiming expenses for new underpants. Tonight, his taxpayer-funded pants are on fire. Allow me to quote directly from his resignation letter tonight:
“I am unable to watch passively whilst certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest.
“Too often my team and I have been pressured in the immediate run up to a budget or fiscal event to deliver yet more reductions to the working-age benefit bill.
“There has been too much emphasis on money-saving exercises and not enough awareness from the Treasury, in particular, that the government’s vision of a new welfare-to-work system could not be repeatedly salami-sliced.
“It is therefore with enormous regret that I have decided to resign.”
And he added, the cuts proposed by George Osborne to disability benefits were a “compromise too far” in a budget that “benefits higher earning taxpayers”.
What a man of principle! Good old IDS, a man who stands up for his principles! To which I reply, bullshit. Iain Duncan Smith has already presided over £30 billion of cuts in benefits to the sick and disabled, he has persecuted the unemployed and many people have died, a large number through suicide, as a direct result of his actions. This is not a man of principle: this is another scheming, cynical politician. And there is much more to this than slashing benefits to the disabled: this is really about his own political aims and ambitions.
Duncan Smith is a major player in the ‘Leave’ the EU campaign. Leaving the EU has always been his raison d’être, nothing else matters as much to him. It has been the basis of his entire career in politics. During John Major’s disastrous tenure as prime minister, Duncan Smith was the leader of “the bastards”, constantly undermining Major, always voting against Major’s pro EU line. Leaving the government tonight is, in my judgement, everything to do with the forthcoming EU referendum and nothing to do with his crocodile tears for the disabled.
My guess is that in the coming days, Duncan Smith will be schmoozing alongside Boris Johnson, who himself has taken a purely political decision to oppose EU membership in order to position himself for the political aftermath of what he hopes would be a vote to leave the EU. This is far from being Duncan Smith’s departure from frontline politics: this is political positioning. He resigned at exactly the time when George Osborne’s latest budget was beginning to unravel in the face of overwhelming criticism of Osborne’s assault on the sick and disabled. This is Duncan Smith riding the wave of opposition to Osborne’s cuts and it is directly connected with the current Tory civil war over Europe. He sees himself as Johnson’s new chancellor. God help us then.
Osborne, the most cynical political operator of them all, has realised the golden rule that applies to just about everything else in the world, that no matter what a bastard you are there is always a bigger bastard out there waiting for you.
And all this just goes to show the depraved state of politics in our country. The secretary of state for work and pensions resigns on a bogus point of principle to defend the very people he has spent six years dumping on to boost the campaign to leave the EU. The sick and disabled, the most vulnerable people in our country, mere political pawns in a big game.
A new low for politics and that’s saying something.
