Cameron’s furious four-letter tirade as pro-Brexit minister IDS quits cabinet
FURIOUS David Cameron unleashed a four-letter rant at his former Work and Pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith over his ‘dishonourable’ Friday resignation, it emerged last night.
Pro-EU Mr Cameron is said to have ‘exploded with rage’ and labelled Mr Duncan Smith a ‘s***’ when the anti-EU rebel rejected pleas not to walk out of government in a row over disability benefits cuts. The animosity deepened after the London edition of the Mail on Sunday obtained a letter that Mr Duncan Smith sent to MPs before he quit the Cabinet, endorsing the Budget reforms he now claims to oppose. Allies of Mr Cameron said the letter shows Mr Duncan Smith used the issue as a ‘fraudulent’ pretext to ‘flounce out’ – and that he had been ‘itching’ to resign for months so that he could fully campaign for an ‘Out’ vote in June’s Brexit referendum.
But friends of Mr Duncan Smith said he had been ordered to write the letter by Downing Street.
The prime minister reportedly called Mr Duncan Smith a ‘s***’ in a 20-minute phone call after receiving his letter resigning as work and pensions secretary early on Friday evening.
There were two phone conversations between Mr Cameron and Mr Duncan Smith. The first, at 7pm, was polite, with the prime minister trying to persuade IDS to stay. It was during the second call shortly afterwards, when it became clear that Mr Duncan Smith was determined to quit, that the PM erupted.
An ally of Mr Duncan Smith say that he ‘woke up on Friday morning resolved to resign’ over the issue.