Iain Duncan Smith, who resigned from cabinet on Friday, has delivered a devastating attack on the Government’s austerity programme, accusing prime minister David Cameron and chancellor George Osborne of balancing the books on the backs of struggling working people and the vulnerable.
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Mr Crabb was appointed by the Prime Minister as the Secretary for the Department of Work and Pensions following the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith last night.
“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”, the government said in a statement.
“This is not some secondary attempt to attack the prime minister or about Europe”, he said.
A Number 10 source insisted the PM “did not use that language”, but indicated that Mr Cameron did rebuke his ex-colleague for not discussing the issues with him face to face.
Several Conservative MPs, along with the main opposition Labour Party, had criticized the disability benefits cuts announced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne.
The Tory party could be facing a growing split among its ranks as opinions appear to remain divided in the wake of Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation as Work and Pensions Secretary.
In his annual budget on Wednesday, Osborne cut corporation and capital gains taxes and lifted the earnings threshold at which the higher rate of income tax is payable while warning the economy would grow more slowly than previously forecast.
“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”, David Cameron wrote.
Cameron said he was “puzzled and disappointed” by Duncan Smith’s decision to resign.
Mr Duncan Smith called suggestions he had resigned to campaign for Britain to leave the European Union “Machiavellian”.
Employment minister Priti Patel – a close ally of Duncan Smith – has come out in support of her fellow Eurosceptic.
Mr Duncan Smith expressed frustration that reform of disability benefits had become embroiled in the Treasury’s need to find Budget savings to keep public spending on track to meet Mr Osborne’s target of eradicating the deficit by 2020.
“This is a man who has been responsible for some of the nastiest policies of the nastiest of Conservative governments, all with the support of the Liberal Democrats for five years”.
While the government is likely to spend the next few days putting out the fire, the prime minister is helped by the fact that he remains popular among Conservative voters and doesn’t have to fight an election any time soon, she said.
“I have found some of these cuts easier to justify than others but, aware of the economic situation and determined to be a team player, I have accepted their necessity”.
It said: “I have to say I am surprised by Ros’s comments”. U-turns are a “very peculiar way” to set policy
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“You start Friday morning telling everyone they have to defend it, then later on Friday you’re drifting away from it, then by Friday evening you say “We’ve kicked into the long grass”.”
