TORY infighting has spiralled further after Iain Duncan Smith delivered a devastating assault on the UK Government’s austerity drive, accusing David Cameron and George Osborne of balancing the books on the backs of poor and vulnerable working people.

In the wake of his dramatic resignation, the former work and pensions secretary condemned Chancellor George Osborne’s “arbitrary” cap on welfare spending and obsession with “short-term savings”.

Duncan Smith said he finally decided to go after finding out that Osborne had “juxtaposed” £1.3 billion a year Personal Independence Payments (PIP) curbs with tax cuts for the better off.

“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,” he said. “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.”

Duncan Smith, a former Tory leader, said on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show that he felt the party was abandoning its “one nation” approach and there was “massive pressure” to finalise deep cuts to PIP before the Budget. Asked why he decided to quit even though the Treasury had signalled a last-minute climbdown on the PIP issue, he said the department would still have been forced to find equivalent savings. Duncan Smith also confirmed that he considered resigning a year ago after a series of spats with Osborne over cuts to tax credits and his flagship Universal Credit project.

He said: “This has been a long-running problem when I have felt really semi-detached in a sense, isolated more often in these debates because I am not able to convince people that what we were losing progressively ... was the narrative that the Conservative Party was this one-nation party caring about those who don’t even necessarily vote for it, who may never vote for it.”

He denied that his decision had anything to do with personal animosity towards Osborne or his desire for Britain to leave the EU.

However, the SNP has described his resignation as a “distraction” from the real issue of cuts to the welfare and disability budget. Deputy parliamentary leader and economy spokesperson Stewart Hosie called for the cuts to be “immediately and completely” scrapped.

Hosie said: “Iain Duncan Smith’s crocodile tears are a distraction from the real issue at hand – while the deep divisions at the top of the Tory party widen and the mud-slinging continues, disabled people and those on low incomes are still expected to bear the brunt of the Tories’ obsession with austerity.

“The UK Government was warned that slashing £12 billion from the welfare budget would do real and lasting harm but the Tories are determined to plough on, cutting even more from the disability budget.

Hosie added: “What this resignation proves beyond doubt is that the Tories’ must abandon their ideological commitment to austerity cuts.

“David Cameron and George Osborne must immediately and completely scrap these cuts.”

Ministers at Duncan Smith’s old department clashed openly after pensions minister Baroness Ros Altmann accused him of causing “maximum damage” in order to get Britain out of the EU.

“I simply cannot understand why he suddenly chose to quit like this when it was clear that Number 10 and the Treasury had told him they were going to pause and rethink these measures. I’m particularly saddened that this really seems to be about the European referendum campaign rather than about DWP policy,” she said.

However, Bernard Jenkin, a leading Eurosceptic and ally of Duncan Smith, attacked the government’s response. “Frankly, for the government to keep saying ‘oh, we’re very perplexed, we don’t understand why Iain Duncan Smith has resigned’, they are deliberately trying to fog the atmosphere,” he said.

Employment minister Priti Patel told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics the departure was not about Europe. She said: “With respect to Ros ... what I would like to say is working with Iain he has always provided support and encouragement in all we have done as a ministerial team.”

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell insisted Osborne now had to “rip up” the financial package. “George Osborne needs to come back to Parliament now, pull this Budget and start again because this Budget isn’t sustainable any more,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

Downing Street, meanwhile, has pledged to “stick to our plan” after Duncan Smith warned that the government was in danger of undermining its one-nation ambition.

A Number 10 spokesman said the welfare spending cap, curbing the benefits bill and protection for pensioners had all been in the Tory manifesto for last year’s General Election.

He said: “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."

Born in Edinburgh, made in Easterhouse – who is the hated IDS?

BORN in Edinburgh, the man who went on to become the first Roman Catholic leader of the Tory Party had his epiphany in Glasgow.

Viewing the poverty in Easterhouse, Iain Duncan Smith, aka IDS, became evangelical about changing the lives of the poor.

There is no doubt he has, though not in a good way. 

In his six-year tenure as Work and Pensions Secretary he has cut benefits drastically and forced the disabled, the sick and vulnerable to seek work.

It was probably too much to hope for enlightened policies for the successor to right-wing MP Norman Tebbit, the “Chingford skinhead”.

Born in Edinburgh in 1954, the son of a highly decorated fighter pilot, IDS’s school years were untouched by any great academic achievements and he joined the army on leaving school, gaining a commission in the Scots Guards.

He left after six years and took up a post with defence firm GEC-Marconi but did not become a director as was claimed in the Tory Party biography. 

Neither did he study for a degree in Perugia University as his own biographical statements initially claimed, having only done a language course in the historial Umbrian city.

Elected as MP for Chingford in 1992, his anti-European Union outbursts constantly infuriated then Tory Prime Minister John Major and he remained a backbencher until 1997 when William Hague made him shadow social security secretary.

An outsider candidate in the 2001 leadership election, he ended up beating Kenneth Clarke whose pro-Europe stance did not endear him to the party’s right.

Despite declaring that the “quiet man” would be in power for a long time, he was seen as unelectable by many MPs. The Betsygate scandal – which centred on salary claims made by IDS on behalf of his wife – led to a vote of no confidence in 2003 which he lost. 

In 2010 he was made Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, introducing the inequitable and much-hated bedroom tax.


Letters I: Duncan Smith’s glee at cuts will not be forgotten


The National View: IDS has thrown a spanner in the works for ambitious Osborne


George Kerevan: IDS resignation is latest salvo in global crisis for neoliberalism