Has he changed British politics for ever?

IDS detonated a bombshell in Downing Street – and we could be feeling the shockwaves for years to come

TShrapnel has been sent flying all over Westminster Osborne has just used up the eighth of his nine lives

HEY were forewarned, but not forearmed. ‘We knew something was up with IDS on Friday morning, when he suddenly refused to do any more media on the Budget,’ said a Downing Street insider. Despite that, when David Cameron walked through the door of his private office just before 7pm, to be presented with his Work and Pensions Secretary’s resignation letter, he was, in the words of one aide, ‘genuinely confused’.

Confusion swiftly gave way to a different set of emotions. Snatching up his iPhone, the Prime Minister initiated a ‘frank exchange of views’ – Downing Street code for his righteous anger at what he saw as a naked attempt to destabilise his premiership. ‘It was only a few weeks ago that IDS was sitting in Cabinet telling the PM he was the Government’s best asset, and the Election victory was a personal triumph for him,’ said one Cameron ally, ‘and then he goes and pulls a stunt like this.’

Adding to Cameron’s fury was the fact his colleague had made no attempt to speak to him personally about his concerns relating to the unfolding rebellion over changes to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for disabled people.

The two men had clashed before, but those confrontations had been on relatively narrow areas of policy. In Cameron’s eyes, this was a personal betrayal.

A few minutes later, George Osborne was given the news. ‘He was taken aback,’ said a No10 source. ‘He’d spoken to Iain about pushing the policy out to consultation, and he’d been completely on board.’

From Iain Duncan Smith’s perspective, it was a case of the Budget that broke the camel’s back. Rumours had been circulating for weeks that he was ‘looking for an excuse’ to walk away from Government and throw his full weight behind the Brexit campaign. It’s certainly true he had made the mental decision to leave the Work and Pensions brief at the next reshuffle.

But it’s equally true he had become increasingly bitter at the need to constantly repel raids on his departmental budget from the Treasury. And even more bitter at what he saw as a failure by George Osborne to grasp the underlying principles of his welfare reform agenda.

Whatever the motivation, Iain Duncan Smith’s bombshell resignation has sent shrapnel flying all over Westminster. And one of the first victims has been Duncan Smith himself. Caricatured by the Left as the bogeyman who revelled in snatching benefit payments from the most vulnerable in society, he is in reality a principled and compassionate man who longed to slay the twin-headed hydra of poverty and welfare dependency. But it is impossible to align those principles with the manner of his resignation. As a frustrated Downing Street source explained: ‘In his letter to the PM, he attacks the PIP policy, but only a week ago he was telling us it wasn’t a problem, and he’d be able to steer it safely through Parliament.’

The second victim is the Prime Minister. Or more specifically, his attempt to guide his party safely through the EU referendum labyrinth. A couple of weeks ago, a former Tory Minister said to me: ‘The PM is going to regret allowing Eurosceptic Ministers to campaign for Brexit from within the Cabinet. Once they get a taste for rebelling over this, they’ll get a taste for rebelling over everything.’

But the biggest victim of Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation is the man he intended to wreak vengeance on all along – George Osborne. ‘George was supposed to be delivering a safety-first Budget,’ said one normally loyal Minister. ‘Instead, he’s managed to blow apart the Cabinet.’

To be fair to Osborne, some sort of major post-Budget fall-out was inevitable. As soon as he referenced the Office for Budgetary Responsibility’s assessment of the risks of Brexit, furious Eurosceptics were always going to hit back.

But from Osborne’s perspective, the timing of the backlash was catastrophic. His political standing was already in decline following his perceived mishandling of tax credits and police budget cuts. And major storm clouds are beginning to encircle the economy, and the Chancellor’s career-defining deficit reduction strategy.

One Osborne ally dismisses these issues as typical Westminster febrility. ‘The day after the referendum we hit the reset button,’ he said.

Perhaps. But perceptions of George Osborne are rapidly being recalibrated. And not in his favour.

In the hours immediately following the Budget, it became fashionable to claim Osborne was morphing into Gordon Brown.

He had grown a Brownite tin-ear. He had no interest in reaching beyond his inner circle. He would brush aside problems with a mixture of bluster and bombast.

But the real problem for Osborne is not that he comes to be seen as a clone of that gruff, unyielding son of the manse. It’s that he’s becoming viewed as someone who’s allowed himself to be sucked into a deadly game of political Russian roulette.

He’s gambled everything on being able to bring the public finances into surplus by 2020 – a gamble the Institute for Fiscal Studies judged to be only marginally better than a 50:50 shot. He’s gambled everything on the UK being able to withstand the gathering economic storm, and gambled again on his ability to convince the voters the ensuing slowdown would have been much, much worse save for his fiscal prudence.

And he has gambled that the economic and political cycles will align in time to make him David Cameron’s successor.

People have written George Osborne’s political obituary before, and been made to look foolish for it. But there are only so many neardeath experiences a man can have before his luck runs out. And Iain Duncan Smith has just used up the eighth of the Chancellor’s nine lives.

It remains to be seen what the longterm implications will be of IDS’s dramatic departure from Government. If the EU referendum is won, and David Cameron and George Osborne move quickly to heal the wounds, it may come to be seen as nothing more than a rather sad and strange end to distinguished political career. But if the referendum is lost, or Tory Eurosceptics cannot be placated in the event of an ‘in’ vote, then the supposedly quiet man of British politics may just have changed the British political landscape for ever.

A bombshell has detonated in Westminster. There are no fatalities yet. But three of our most senior Ministers are among the wounded.