‘Bully’ Osborne tried to fire IDS 4years ago

IN HIS book, David Laws throws a revealing light on the heated disputes and tit-for-tat squabbles that made Chancellor George Osborne and Cabinet colleague Iain Duncan Smith sworn enemies – leading up to the Work and Pensions Secretary’s shock resignation last week.

Astonishingly, the book claims Osborne knew he could bully Duncan Smith because Prime Minister David Cameron didn’t like him either.

And Laws says Osborne and Cameron tried to sack IDS from his Department of Work and Pensions job four years ago – but their colleague refused to budge.

Laws writes: ‘IDS’s vision was not merely driven by a desire to slash budgets or stigmatise claimants.’ Instead, Duncan Smith wanted to create a benefits system that strongly supported work, with the scope for abuse removed.

But George Osborne, argues Laws, had a different perspective. He wanted the financial savings from welfare cuts.

He saw the Department for Work and Pensions budget as a cash cow to be milked and was sceptical of IDS’s ‘big idea’ of Universal Credit, partly because he was not an admirer of IDS, and partly because he feared it would be an administrative nightmare.

Laws says one Cabinet Minister even described Universal Credit as ‘Iain’s lunatic plan, which will end in disaster’.

Laws claims Osborne ‘knew he could be tough on IDS because the PM wasn’t his biggest fan either’. ‘“Unless it’s got the letters ‘UC’ in it, Iain’s just not interested,” David Cameron once complained,’ writes Laws.

The Chancellor tried to have Duncan Smith fired from his Work and Pensions role when Cameron carried out his Government reshuffle in 2012 but IDS refused to be budged from ‘the job he loved’, says Laws.

‘Relations between the Treasury and DWP were often bad and sometimes awful,’ Laws adds.

‘On occasions, Iain refused the No10 policy team the statistics and analysis they requested.

In return, the Chancellor often declined even to notify IDS of major announcements in his own policy area.’

The book claims Duncan Smith clashed again with Cameron and Osborne over child poverty targets.

Osborne threatened to scrap the targets altogether unless IDS agreed to drop income levels from them. Cameron backed Osborne against IDS.

‘Osborne said: “It looks like relative poverty could go up. I don’t want to tie our targets to a measure we cannot keep,”’ writes Laws.