Iain Duncan Smith has resigned from the British Government in protest at Chancellor George Osborne's proposed cuts to benefits for the disabled. His resignation comes at a Tory low point following a chaotic 48 hours since Osborne's budget on Wednesday.
Labour are revelling in the news, one source commenting, "The Tory party has gone from chaos to meltdown."
Iain Duncan Smith was a former Conservative leader and one of the party's 'big beasts' running the Work and Pensions ministry with an obsessive dedication that benefit recipients soon learned to fear as cuts became the order of the day.
The forthcoming new arrangements for State pension payments have been kept in such secrecy that even now, few understand their impact but realise most will be worse off. Many other benefits have been pared in a spending reduction drive that has hit the poorer classes hard.
It is odd then then 'IDS' has resigned over further cuts, imposed this time by George Osborne to hit the disabled with benefits reductions of a further £1 billion which IDS referred to as "a compromise too far" saying that welfare for pensioners should be cut instead.
The two ministers squabbling over which section of society least able to defend itself should have spending cuts defines the current Tory regime where the politics of austerity has become less to do with saving the country from debt, and more to do with Conservative policies of cutting benefits 'as most people are on the fiddle.'
IDS said that Osborne's cuts are "not defensible" as they were in a budget that gave relief to high rate taxpayers. Iain Duncan Smith also accused Osborne of imposing cuts to welfare for political rather than economic reasons.
The Prime Minister David Cameron certainly did not see this resignation coming and instead of the normal blandishments, said he was "puzzled and disappointed" at the resignation which came just before 9pm on Friday night even though Osborne had agreed, too late, to delay his plans to hit disability benefits.
Cameron's Cabinet already is divided over the In/Out referendum on Europe with IDS a supporter of a Brexit, a role he now is free to pursue without the restrictions of Cabinet.
The resignation letter to David Cameron read, "I have for some time and rather reluctantly come to believe that the latest changes to benefits to the disabled and the context in which they've been made are, a compromise too far.
"While they are defensible in narrow terms given the continuing deficit, they are not defensible in the way they were placed within a Budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers.
"They should have instead been part of a wider process to engage others in finding the best way to better focus resources on those most in need."
"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 couid not be repeatedly salami-sliced."
Cameron clearly was in shock at the IDS resignation, rightly suspecting that the battle lines are being drawn up over the real question, Britan's future relationship with Europe and losing IDS leaves his right flank exposed.
In a reply to IDS' resignation, the Prime Minister said,
"We collectively agreed; you, No.10 and the Treasury, proposals which you and your Department then announced a week ago. Today we agreed not to proceed with the policies in their current form and instead to work together to get these policies right over the coming months. In the light of this, I am puzzled and disappointed that you have chosen to resign."
Mr Cameron said he regretted Mr Duncan Smith's resignation but added: "You leave the Government with my thanks and best wishes."
A not a word from Boris... yet.
