Right! You’ve got 40 minutes,’ says Nick Wood, Iain Duncan Smith’s spin doctor, in the manner of a game-show host. We are sitting round a table in IDS’s office. Nick has a large glass of red wine in his hand and I have water. Iain can’t have a drink, I soon realise, because it would end up all over the wall after one of his emphatic hand gestures.
It has been a good week for IDS, perhaps his best since becoming leader of the opposition. Crispin Blunt may have plunged his dagger, but it turned out to have a rubber blade. The Tories gained more than 600 seats in the council elections, the Liberals failed to break through, and Labour did abysmally. Now is the time for the Tory leader to rout his internal critics, and take the fire into the enemy camp. IDS leans forward, hands clasped, eager to talk about ‘A fair deal’ – the campaign catchphrase for his new domestic policies.
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