I readily admit that I have never had a lot of time for Iain Duncan Smith, and doubt I ever will. But his Marr interview yesterday about the reasons for his resignation struck me as surprisingly sincere. I do think he resigned because a line had been crossed by George Osborne and Duncan Smith could not concur with his having done so. As someone who has resigned from jobs in the past on points of principle I recognised in what Duncan Smith said something that I have felt in my time: that a point can be reached where it's not just that all the other petty irritations of many working relationships become paramount, but that they are actually insignificant because on affront to what the person resigning thinks themselves to be has arisen and there is no likelihood of reconciliation on that point arising. The time to go has been reached.
I realise that there is much discussion on the impact of many other political events on this resignation. And I am all too well aware that it seems odd that after six years of attacks on the least well off in our communities Duncan Smith thinks now is the time to act. But I believe him nonetheless; I think in his own mind he is being sincere and that a personal Rubicon, pitched at a place many of us might feel incomprehensible, was crossed and he felt he had to go.
That, though, is significant, for three reasons. First, it reveals that there is a callousness in the heart of the policy that has been pursued. I am fairly sure that it is the indifference of the Treasury that has eventually got to IDS. He has toed the line, delivered the excuses, compromised for the Party, defended as required by collective responsibility for just so long, and then cutting capital gains tax and corporation tax whilst hitting those on social security yet again finally became a slap too far, as of course it was.
Second, if Duncan Smith can feel this he is not alone. Others can too. And, just as after Geoffrey Howe's attack on Thatcher she was never able to deliver the dry justification for her own mauling of people in pursuit of the self interest of a few again so too might this be true on this occasion: IDS's resignation may deny forever the possibility of the likes of Nicky Morgan on Question Time arguing that benefits cuts and tax cuts being wholly unrelated events when every single person knew that was not true. The IDS legacy may make it impossible to compartmentalise these issues in the way that this government and the last tried to do for far too long.
Third, in that case the opportunity for new debate is opened up. It can now be said that benefit cuts have gone too far. And it should be said, just as strongly, that tax cuts have gone too far as well. The need for rebalancing: for seeking redistribution and not increasing inequality should surely now be on the agenda. And with it more radical reforms, like a citizen's income that is really designed to be simple, save admin cost, deliver universality, beat poverty, support pensioners, provide both opportunity and a safety net for those seeking to work on their own and that ensures no child needs to live in real need.
Iain Duncan Smith may have appeared to attack George Osborne but he did something much more than that. He attacked an ideology built on indifference that was intended to impose hardship. George Osborne may well have been consigned to political history. It's more important that the ideology is as well.
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I did APPEAR sincere, yes, but he’s a politician and will have been trained for that but I think it’s a bit rich. If you take your team forward, forward, forward and then suddenly, on your own reach an arbitrary red line which you had never publically spoken of, never defined and your colleagues are surprised then really, the policy of which he now considers too far is a natural progression of what he appeared only too happy to progress previously. His red line seems completely arbitrary and vague. Sure, not every person on DLA/PLP needs it, all of it or is in poverty and even if most wouldn’t be very much affected by a cut (at least not in the area of what the money is meant to address) there WILL be some people on those handouts who will genuinely be forced into situations/life-conditions which most of us would find unacceptable and abhor the cuts which cause them.
This is the problem with so many benefits – they are not means tested so it’s easy to assume that every recipient of benefits has Sky TV and a car but the Tories repeatedly fail to build in safety nets.
Sure, bedroom tax is a good idea in theory – free up council home where people are keeping and entirely unnecessary spare room but what of those whose ‘spare’ room IS necessary. The single parent families who want somewhere for their kids to stay over, the disabled people who need to store medical equipment. It all falls apart when compassion is forgotten about. So, no, I’m not very sympathetic or convinced by IDS – he isn’t claiming any epiphany and is unapologetic for anything up to this red line.
Candidly – your attitude in this comment stinks
No one is on hand outs, for example
I have deleted other comments you have made
“I have deleted other comments you have made”
Why ?
Because your tone offended me and I am the editor
I meant “IT did appear sincere” ! – I am not IDS !
“Because your tone offended me and I am the editor”
Right, then don’t claim this is an open forum in which the only time messages are removed is
“Comments are only deleted here when racist, abusive, repetitive or inappropriate to the issues under discussion”
That’s clearly not true – are you being honest now, or was it honest then – they can’t both be true, or has policy changed. Clearly you also remove when a comment is inconvenient, even slightly undermines your point or doesn’t toe your own political line.
” I am, in fact, extremely generous in comment moderation ”
Except that you’ve proven that to be false. Re-instate my messages and ask others whether my comments were racist etc… Don’t invite comment if you only want your choir telling you how wonderful you are.
You made what I considered abusive comments about people claiming social security
And my decision is final
Your attitude justifies my decision
David Spencer – grow up and learn to accept that all comments can be moderated from anyone on this blog, you’re nothing special!
I even delete regulars occasionally when they get too irate and I think it appropriate to do so
Then they get irate with me
I’d like to think that this is at last the moment when cuts are recognised as having gone too way too far. But from the interviews I’ve heard the stated problem appears to be more about perception i.e. putting the PIP cuts into the budget alongside increases in the tax thresholds for the richer cohort of the population. The argument seems to be that we should be cutting pensioner benefits rather than the disabled – but I have not heard one suggestion that the tax give aways should be reversed.
I have not heard that suggested either
Time for someone to say it, loud and clear
Jeremy Corbyn has said quite clearly that the cuts in Corporation and Capital Gains taxes should be abandoned instead
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cancel-corporation-and-capital-gains-tax-cuts-to-protect-disability-benefits-jeremy-corbyn-says-a6943856.html
The outrageous thing is this: Duncan Smith has challenged austerity more effectively that Labour!!!! You couldn’t make up something so bizarre! If this doesn’t throw a billion watt floodlight in the failure of the Left then nothing does. It means we have to wait for the neoliberals to eat each other before change happens.
As to IDS’s sincerity-hard to say. If it took him 6 years (and a history of lies regarding his education and wife’s employment and grotesque statistic manipulation that invoked the ire of the ONS) to realise that the cuts were to much then it just doesn’t stack up.
here is a report some comments of IDS a few weeks ago:
“While out campaigning for the Tory London mayoral candidate, Zac Goldsmith, Duncan Smith also dismissed protests about the controversial sanctions regime as “a classic buzz from the left” and claimed “these people are never going to vote for us — you have to understand, these people hate us”.
This sudden rescinding of his clearly articulated beliefs of the past six years needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. I saw the interview that a friend convinced me to watch as she thaought it evidence of some sort of ‘Damascene moment’ – but it doesn’t wash with me.
The man’s an utter scoundrel. I spent a year of my life fighting the bedroom tax and going to court with others to fight its absurdity and bizarre injustice. IDS knew that it wasn’t working even on its own terms and even now the DWP is spending 250,000 on fighting the latest appeal success involving people who are suffering them most difficult life circumstances. Absolutely shameful, the man is devoid of any integrity.
I dispute none of that
But still think he resigned sincerely
IDS’s sincerity is a subjective consideration, confused by the contrast between his delivery on Marr and the large number if times when one might suppose he would have been offended by disdain of his own attitude to the less well off and the less able.
I agree about the Howe effect. The bit of caution I have is that there are two things going on in the Tories that although hand-in-hand need separate scrutiny: the EU and control of Toryism.
Mindful of the latter, I think some focus should be on the need for Boris to divorce himself from Cameronism before the fray starts, because he will want to proclaim a different way forward more inclusive and compassionate or else the springboard (if he takes over soon) will be wasted. And especially over changing the image of IDS himself if he is to be prominent under a new Boris set-up. Not to be overlooked, is my point.
Add one more thing, and note it is being oddly ignored in press analysis: ruling only hours before resignation that all Universal Credit info must be at last published.
What IDS may well have done is to set up Corbyn v. Boris even if the Brexiters lose – no mean achievement, and it is that context we should not forget when scrutinising sincerity.
I disagree, insofar as you are both right and wrong:
“I think in his own mind he is being sincere and that a personal Rubicon, pitched at a place many of us might feel incomprehensible, was crossed and he felt he had to go”
I believe the Rubicon was that the abolition of PIP, a policy proposal introduced by IDS a week before the budget, was pulled by Osborne and the Treasury.
Ministers can and should resign for that: a policy reversed – not so much an insult or a slap in the face, as a punch that stops you in your tracks.
The Rubicon, however, is the river not the reason; and we must look at reasons why the Chancellor – and, without doubt, the Prime Minister – decided as they did.
Bluntly, the attack on the disabled had become politically toxic and a prior policy, the £30 cut to ESA, was moving charities for the disabled to repudiate Conservative MPs as patrons and campaign sponsors, and ‘go public’ in the Daily Telegraph about the damage IDS was doing.
Toxic, indeed, with rumbles of rebellion on the benches; and the logical political response from Number 10 would be to drop the blame on IDS, repudiate his policies politically as well as fiscally, and sack a dangerous opponent in the ‘Brexit’ debate.
IDS took the expedient course of jumping ship before they made him walk the plank.
But, just as your assessment is both right and wrong, so is Ian Duncan Smith’s disingenuity in stating which principles provoked his resignation.
He was and is committed to destabilising and obliterating Social Security – the socialist principle of an economically secure society – and his most principled objection to his colleagues’ actions is that they were politically inept to bundle tax cuts for the wealthy with support cuts for disabled people.
And, in that, he is both right and wrong: ex-minister IDS strides out into the world convinced that he was right – right in everything he did – and that his colleagues lacked the vision and the media skills to push the PIP cut through successfully.
I’m glad to see the back of him; I hope that we will see a ‘Grayling’ reversal of his policies but I cannot say that I am optimistic. The performative Christianity of his successor does not extend as far as generosity to the poor and the sick.
Again, I am not totally convinced of IDS sincerity about this.
What I do know is that DWP has carried out impact assessments on its cuts and they are very hard to get your hands on. It could very well be that IDS has read these and has gone along with Osbourne’s push half-heartedly up to now and maybe the latest tax giveaway with more cuts for the disabled did push him over the edge.
There are other considerations.
I’m no fan of Frank Field but last night on Radio 4 he felt that the relationship between IDS and Osbourne was not good, because IDS is pushed out to defend cuts but also, he then has to step back whilst the Chancellor and the PM debate in public whether or not they should go ahead!! That’s not a good position to be in.
Channel 4 came up trumps with an interview of one of those Tories who disagree with the cuts. So there are those in the Party opposed to them.
At the end of the day though, what pleases me is that this is democracy at work, because some of the Tories are now scared of loosing votes (something that Tony Benn suggested was at the heart of democracy because it in effect makes politicians have to care about the vulnerable in society). So the disabled may be spared – I certainly hope so.
What makes me more angry is that then everyone is talking about the cuts still being necessary and where they will come from. They are not necessary.
The other frustration is that the default position is to ask Labour what they would do to boost the economy and deal with the ‘deficit’. Cue waffle from whichever shadow minister is present.
The answer to me is simple: All Osbourne or a Labour chancellor has to do is put back the money he has taken out of the economy since 2010 and also ‘invest to save’ in projects like the Midland main line electrification for example. Then watch the tax receipts go up so that the transfer payments for creating benefits can be supported and even some money to pay off the much vaunted deficit might also be raised.
You try finding a Labour politician who’ll say that. But it seems obvious to me and in our present circumstance eminently sensible.
My local Tory MP sent to me by email on Saturday (also to the hundreds of other local constituents who had complained about the attack on the sick and disabled) a copy of a letter she had sent to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People (cc’ing Cameron, Osborne, IDS) that she could not support the budget due to the changes to PIP.
I have no doubt that many other Tory MP’s did the same thing, especially in marginal seats such as mine. However, as she had supported the previous cuts to PIP, I am also in no doubt that this is a political gesture to try to assuage an increasingly angry and vocal group of constituents who have gone out of their way to use social media to bring shame on their local representative in parliament.
It would not surprise me that having seen the level of MP’s rebelling against the leadership, that IDS resigned to try to take the heat out of the situation (for the good of the party as a whole) as much as for his own principles or ulterior motives.
He may well have fallen on his sword at the request of others in the Cabinet.
Corbyn will do that I think, Corbyn said in Nottingham last year he would electrify Midlands Line and suggested other lines being considered too.
What I think is the problem is the chosen quietness about things Corbyn was vociferous about lat year. I feel sure it is quietness and not abandonment – very sure – but as with QE and Basic Income etc I would rather see these ideas neon-lighted. Can only presume quiet strategy is something to to with calming the Blairites, whatever it I would prefer a bold presentation of an alternative way to commence, tho’ the waiting game may have benefit I can’t foresee.
I have given my caution about IDS sincerity above. Where Labour need to tread carefully is in using IDS’s anti-Osbornism that parallels’s McDonnell’s austerity-idealistic truth about Osborne and Cameron in a way that does not pass credibility to IDS and Boris, especially when the press are already (to my perception) constructing that story.
You cannot expect John Mc to come out for Basic Income when he doesn’t know how to fund it. I sincerely hope that he will be discouraged by his economic panel of experts, because there is no way that you can have a meaningful BI and all the public goods and services for which there is demand, IMO.
Sorry Carol
That is just wrong
I certainly do expect him to come out with it and to fund it. Done right it will get rid of a lot/incoporate a lot of current welfare costs. Personally would lie to see a BI self-sustainable income that just (or almost) runs as basic pension giving retirement freedom, means you don’t need student grant or maternity/paternity payments, can look after family/childrens’ basic needs in planned periods off work, keeps fed when ill, funds work-seeking costs, etc. He did mention it a month or so ago, just that my point is it’s ‘quiet’ as in not highlighted. But it’s essential way foprward to create a snesible fair socity, IMO. Needs the will and boldness to form through all the coplication a way to do it. Looking forward to the Swiss referendum in June to see if they adopt, notably agianst the wishes of Swiss Parliament.
“We have to live within our means.”
Obvious ins’t it? Except it isn’t, because what those means are is very different for a sovereign, currency issuing government than it is for a household (and even then, most households borrow against future earnings, this can even be virtuous when such borrowing allows investment in training or education which increases potential future earnings or buying a car to enable transport to a higher paying but more remote job…)
A sovereign, currency issuing government like the UK is never revenue constrained because it is the ISSUER and not the USER of the currency. It can afford to buy everything for sale in GB pounds if it so wishes
The only constraint on the government is REAL RESOURCES, those are the means it must live within. Once the resource limit is reached then spending becomes inflationary; likewise if it is competing for resources with the private sector. Which is where tax comes in – AFTER spending not before it
Simon,
It could be that the key issue here is to be found in the conclusion to this article from the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/21/the-g-o-p-s-economic-delusion
which notes that the neo liberal article of faith which says that tax cuts will drive growth and fuel an economic boom, which has had almost four decades to deliver and has failed spectacularly, is exactly that, an article of faith which has no congruence with reality:
“Indeed, Nyhan and the political scientist Jason Reifler carried out a study demonstrating that attempts to set the record straight can even reinforce misperceptions: self-described conservatives were shown evidence that the Bush tax cuts had lowered over-all revenues, but, Nyhan told me, “the information actually made them more likely to believe that the tax cuts had increased revenue.”
Voters didn’t come up with these misperceptions on their own. “The ideas spread because politicians and pundits told people they were true,” Nyhan says. “And once misperceptions are out there they’re very difficult to overcome.””
Presenting evidence that higher level national economies are not the same as a household one; that sovereign governments able to issue their own currency do not face the same constraints; that even those who for over 300 years have maintained the fiction that money is not created out of thin air have finally admitted to themselves and the world that they got it wtong; and a million and one other myths and downright lies makes no difference to those in society, at whatever level, who view such matters as articles of faith and who regard those who present any evidence which contradicts that faith as people who live in the reality based community.
It’s like trying to tell Chicken Licken that the sky is not falling down.
We had one of those true believers at the Political Studies Association last night
I was little more tolerant than I am with neoliberals here
Dave – I suspect that there’s a lot of truth in that, which shows that we are dealing with something akin to religious fundamentalism where someone’s self image and identity is connected with damaging beliefs.
The 1% will be happy to exploit this ‘flaw’ in human psychology.
The question is what measures can be taken from an educational point of view-is any attempt like holding a candle up in a hurricane? I feel that the neo-liberal agenda will collapse but it will have to get so bad first that the wake up call cannot be avoided. Only then will the ‘true believers’ finally reject the ‘idol’ they have been worshipping.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/now-canada-is-trying-a-basic-income-britain-can-ignore-it-no-longer-a6919486.html#commentsDiv
“I think in his own mind he is being sincere and that a personal Rubicon, pitched at a place many of us might feel incomprehensible, was crossed and he felt he had to go.”
Indeed, that may well be so. This is after all a man who claimed very recently that, “Seventy-five per cent of all those who have been sanctioned say it helped them focus and get on”, and that, “we’re actually running out of people to go back into work.”
Aside from there being 768,000 jobs for the 1.68 million unemployed (which does not account for anyone in work looking for work, or any of the nearly 9 million who are classed as ‘economically inactive’ looking for work – and don’t get me started on the impending robot/AI/bot boom that will massacre the number of jobs that there are going to be), there have been hundreds of thousands of people sanctioned, so the claim that IDS or his DWP minions have interviewed so many people, let alone found that a nice round figure of 75% of them were in any way supportive of being sanctioned, is utterly ludicrous.
If you consider Iain Duncan’s Smith behaviour traits as symptoms, one of the conditions that pops up is narcissistic personality disorder, amongst others.
To come back to the main thrust of your article here, if it turns out that Mr Duncan Smith is suffering from a mental health issue of some kind, would that not undermine the efficacy of his claims about Osborne?
It’s not that I support Osborne’s chancellorship, you understand, but relying on the words of one of the architects of Tory Government policy, when arguing against said Government’s policies, especially given his behaviour of late, seems to me to be fraught with peril.
When a basically decent person is exposed to a cracked actor the impression is not reliable i.m.o. Re-calibrate your cynicism Richard 🙂