The truth is yes, we need to get the deficit down, but we need to make sure we widen the scope of where we look to get that deficit down and not just narrow it down on working age benefits.
“Because otherwise it just looks like we see this as a pot of money, that it doesn’t matter because they don’t vote for us.
But other ministers at the DWP hit back, expressing support for Duncan-Smith, including Priti Patel, Justin Tomlinson and Shailesh Vara lined up to hit back at Lady Altmann.
John Crace’s marvellous sketch on the Andrew Marr IDS cataclysm.
Iain Duncan Smith perched on the edge of his seat, clutching a small, silk cushion with the letter C embroidered on the front in both hands. When a man has just found his conscience after years of tireless searching, he’s keen not to let it out of his sight.
IDS leant a little further towards Andrew Marr, his head cocked to one side and his eyelids fluttering helplessly.
“There were three of us in this marriage,” he said, fighting back the tears. “Me, the little people of this country and the Treasury.”
It’s the turn of Ros Altmann, the pensions minister, to insist that her statement last night on her turbulent relationship with Iain Duncan Smith was heartfelt and not for personal gain.
Peter Lilley, the Conservative MP and former social security secretary, is damning on George Osborne’s political future, calling him “not necessarily the best person” to be prime miniter.
He says Osborne’s hopes for the Tory leadership have been “damaged but not destroyed.”
“I think that’s inevitably the case,” he told the BBC’s The World This Weekend.
He’s an extremely able person and in many ways... well, I was going to say a safe pair of hands but not in this case. But generally a safe pair of hands. And so not necessarily therefore the best person.
Lilley said he could understand why the Budget was seen as unfair. “It came as great shock to most of us when the day after the Budget we found out there was this proposal for three billion pounds of disability benefits which we hadn’t heard about the day before, when we were hearing about cuts to corporation tax and capital gains tax” he said.
He called it a “mistake” to bounce people into changes to welfare so quickly.
This was bounced on him, on the public and on parliament in a way that was ill-advised.
Another error he said, in a thinly-veiled critique of Number 10 and pensions minister Ros Altmann, was to ascribe “cynical motives to your opponents.”
It’s wrong. When you impune people’s motives you’re basically saying you can’t respond to their arguments and it will be very damaging to the party.. because it will make it harder for us to reunite on June 24th on the way we’ll need to.
Tory MP Andrew Percy, one of the key party opponents to the revolt over cuts to PIP for disabled people, has said it is time for leaders of the party to listen to the growing dissent.
“We have to remember the basic values of our party and our country, which is we protect those who are vulnerable,” he told Hull Daily Mail. “That means people at the top of the party have to listen to those of us who have concerns. People need to pay heed to those warnings.”
Percy led a group of around 20 Tory MPs who wrote to Osborne before Duncan-SMith’s resignation, calling for a rethink on the cuts.
“My political career, it is fair to say, hasn’t been enhanced but I know there were a lot of colleagues who had concerns,” Percy said. “If it hadn’t been for the strength of support I had privately from colleagues encouraging me to put my head above the parapet, it could have been a lot harder.”
We are sorry to see Iain Duncan Smith go, but we are a ‘One Nation’ government determined to continue helping everyone in our society have more security and opportunity, including the most disadvantaged.
That means we will deliver our manifesto commitments to make the welfare system fairer, cut taxes and ensure we have a stable economy by controlling welfare spending and living within our means.
Under this government there are over two million more people with the security of a job and a pay packet, almost half a million fewer children growing up in a home where nobody works and over a million fewer people trapped on out-of-work benefits.
But there is more to do. That’s why we will stick to our plan so we finish the job of delivering stability, security and opportunity for working people in our country.
The key quotes from Iain Duncan Smith's Sky News interview
On his effectiveness outside government
I would rather leave and mount this case outside than snipe from the sidelines and brief as some people do. I don’t want to do that. I want to get out clean and say ‘look, I have a different view and a different way to do it.’
On being freer to speak out on Europe
I am not in any way restrained on Europe. That is the point. If I was restrained on Europe this might have some logic. It does not.
I could have stayed in Cabinet as some of my colleagues have done and they are still free to talk about Europe.
On attacks on his motives
The idea this is about Europe I’m afraid, I recognised this would happen, there would be an attempt to try and besmirch my motivation and everything else.
The truth is it’s not about Europe. I haven’t spoken about Europe for 10 years.
On the barrage of cuts directed at working age people and families
We shouldn’t keep dipping our bucket into that well because that well is about people with real difficulty and I want to see us broaden it out.
IDS confirms he will not be making a Commons resignation statement.
I have written the letter. You can disagree with me, with my policies. But I am genuine in my concern for working-age people. I want us to get the balance right.
IDS said his motives are “being impuned by some people”.
“I came into politics because I care about Britain and the British people, that is how I have lived my whole political life.”
His resignation letter, despite mentioning Osborne by name, was not an attempt to thwart Osborne’s chances to reach Number 10, he says. “I am not interested at all in individuals and their prospects, I’m interested in getting this government back on the right track in terms of social reform.”
Has he done well as Chancellor, asks Islam. “I think his record speaks for itself,” Duncan-Smith replies.
IDS is clearly incensed by speculation his resignation is about Europe.
I am not in anyway restrained on Europe. If I was restrained that might have had some logic but I am not.
I haven’t spoken about Europe for ten years. I’m in government because I care about social justice. I didn’t have to come back into government and I didn’t want any other job.
He will not address Ros Altmann’s comments directly, but said he was prepared that people would attempt to discredit him.
IDS says he has been mulling his position for nine months but the Budget had been the clincher.
When I was sitting looking at the Budget, it took me 48 hours [to decide] that I was better off out and I should make these arguments about our direction from the outside.
I want them [the government] to get back on track and I won’t achieve that because of the narrowing o the base we can’t keep going after working age pensions.
I would rather leave than snipe from the sidelines and brief, as some people do. I want to get out, clean.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion