Iain Duncan Smith has resigned

David Cameron has replied to Iain Duncan Smith's resignation in a letter:

I regret that you have chosen to step down from the government at this moment. Together we designed the Personal Independence Payment to support the most vulnerable and to give disabled people more independence.

We all agreed that the increased resources being spent on disabled people should be properly managed and focused on those who need it most. That is why 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.

dj, Of course there's something wrong with it! He's obviously been reading about Goebbel's theory that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.

In the budget speech, Osborne said "Child poverty is down; pensioner poverty is down; inequality is down; and the gender pay gap has never been smaller." All lies and can be proved to be lies, but most people won't even bother to check.

Even most people on here don't believe it, daphne, no matter how often we tell them and give links to the facts. What hope for the general public who read the wrong papers, i.e., all those owned by offshore proprietors?

Gove is a weird one. I actually think he does have some principles. I think he thought he was doing the best for education and wanted everybody to have what he had. However, he has his head in the clouds and wouldn't listen to anybody. He really did think that sending every school in the land was a good idea, despite the fact that every school I know has sets of bibles collecting dust in cupboards. He's pulling Nicky Morgan's strings. On Question Time last night she couldn't give one reason why forcing every school to become an academy is a good idea. She just didn't have any idea on the reasoning behind what she's been told to do. A government controlled by idealogues is a recipe for disaster.

Thinking about it, Hunt might get IDS's job. He's made a pig's ear of the NHS, as he did with Media and Culture and it might be a good time to get him out of his hole. He's as thick as a brick and will do as he's told for his own career.

dj, I know. It's why it took so long to persuade people that the sun doesn't revolve round the earth.

Nicky Morgan always looks like a rabbit in the headlights.
However, she's very good at spouting government edicts. I wonder if she went to the sort of school where you learn by rote.

Off to bed now. Only so much excitement can be taken in one day.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
Goodnight.

A last link before I go.

speye.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/a-toast-to-ids-resigned-over-benefit-cuts-away-and-shite/

She went to Surbiton High School, which is a second division fee-paying school. I bet she was a good, conscientious pupil, who always did her homework. She certainly doesn't shine at independent thinking ;-), but is marginally better than Priti Patel, who seems to have had her brain replaced by a chip, manufactured by Conservative Party HQ.

Off to bed now too - as you say, too much excitement for one day!

He's obviously gunning for Osborne and trying to cast himself as someone who has a heart. Dreams of leadership? Again?
He's fed up with being cast as the evil one re welfare "reform".
Really pissed off with Osborne for badgering him to find savings on disability benefits and then doing a swift U turn in the last couple of days.
He has also failed, and failed dismally, to make good progress on introducing the monthly paid Universal Credit.
Should be an interesting budget debate.

Robert Peston tweeted that politics doesn't get any nastier than this.

Osborne is now totally exposed. Where else will he try to make cuts and who else will be the fall guy?

Indeed.
Here's comment from the Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/18/the-guardian-view-iain-duncan-smith-very-political-resignation?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I agree with all that petra said at 22.17pm

I think he may be lining himself up for after the referendum.

I can understand that Mr Duncan Smith was trying to simplify the benefits system and cut down the number of people able to claim who perhaps could manage without - the electorate had demanded that in the run up to the last election. Cut out benefit scroungers seemed to have rated high I seem to remember. His letter seemed to imply to me that he was thinking it was going too far but was being persuaded otherwise in order to save money - austerity and all that - and I suspect a lot of persuasion was going on. But his letter reads that the final straw was Mr Osborne cutting more benefits (yes Mr DC did sign) - and then using that money, not to balance the books, but to give tax cuts to the better off. Mr DC had no knowledge of this bit. Not his department. Why can Mr Cameron not grasp this? I bet he can really!

Westminster is a dog pit and politics is a messy horrible business.

At last the ideology behind all the cuts has finally been exposed - by a member of the right wing of the Tories.

Gideon is going to find it very difficult to target the poor now. He has been warned before about the disabled - remember how he was booed at the olympics?

The outers are now hoping that the remainders will look part of the nasty party and IDS and his out chronies will look like the caring crowd. What a joke - people have longer memories than that.

I am so pleased that we are not all in this together - who'd want to be part of that crew?

dj I'm interested to know which papers are the right ones?

I would love it if we were all in it together. But as I said to Wilma on the Something positive thread early yesterday evening before the announcement, I believed it then for 6 months about 6 years ago, but that was it.

Now that the PIP arrangements have been scrapped can I make a suggestion that Gidean also scrap the tax giveaways - he will then not have to look elsewhere for cuts to the poor.

Try something new Gid - try expanding the economy by investing in our future and give the working man real jobs and hope.

IDS is of course a Eurosceptic and I agree with several on here who say he is trying to endear himself to the BREXITers. I think he sees Boris as the next PM and is firmly planting his feet within that group. Maybe he hopes that in a few weeks time the reasons he gave to quit will have been totally forgotten, (the way politics goes), and he will be well placed for a smart new position.

IDS is in fact our MP and we do occasionally get leaflets through the door from him concerning local issues and the wider ones too. I shall read them with interest in the coming months!

What pokies from IDS, he has never cared for the vulnerable and the poor , suddenly he becomes a man with principles , rubbish ,

Reading some comments on mumsnet - he doesn't sound a very pleasant or principled person.

I always thought he had principles.

I have to work in a team in a job I do. We make decisions on behalf of hundreds of people. We are the representatives.
In that team, all of us, at some time or other, goes along with others even though we may even disagree strongly at times.
If we dont, the team doesnt work. Sometimes the larger group of people knows that the individual doesnt agree with the majority, but often they dont.

To give balance whitewave, there are also posters on there who claim to know him or know someone who does, who say the opposite. And I have only skimmed the first 3 pages.

Someone defending him last night described him as a man of strong Christian beliefs , oh well

Surely that was tongue in cheek, Anniebach.
I wonder what Jesus would say to him.

Sorry he has gone, but cannot see he had any alternative. At least he has the courage of his convictions. Think most of those that oppose DAvid Cameron's view on staying in the EU are on shaky ground.

Sorry he has gone?
Best thing that ever happened for most benefit claimants.
His convictions have made people commit suicide.