Iain Duncan Smith is quietly spoken. His interview with today’s Times (£) is a case in point. The political elite are ‘distanced’ from the people, he says. The Leveson inquiry is there to ‘clean the house’. The job of government is to govern well, not be loved. The ‘omnishambles’ will pass because David Cameron has ‘the capability to pull himself and us all through’.
But, amid these placid notes, is a subito fortissimo. The welfare secretary sets himself against George
Osborne’s wish that a further £10 billion in welfare cuts be found by 2016. He says:
‘This is my discussion with him… My view is that it’s not [all going to come from welfare]… We’ll have a look and see what scope there is but we’re all in this together…
There is no such thing as an easy target in welfare … We have a responsibility to support people in difficulty, we can’t run away from that.’
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