Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph disclosed that George Osborne was planning to open a second front in his rather bizarre confrontation of the working poor by raiding Universal Credit, the government’s new welfare-to-work scheme. Today, the Times reports that Iain Duncan Smith might resign if this goes ahead.
Friends of Mr Duncan Smith escalated the row, saying that he would quit rather than carry out cuts he believes would wreck universal credit. “The Treasury have come after UC [universal credit] at every fiscal event and Iain has made clear every time that this is a red-line issue for him. That is the case now as it has been in the past,” one said.
This is a worrying development, particularly it may make the Chancellor even more likely to press ahead with calamitous cuts to UC.
The Chancellor has never held IDS in very high regard, as we find out from each fresh book published on the government.
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