Tory backlash

How resistance over Government plans unfolded

March 12

The Daily Telegraph reports that benefits payments to the disabled are to be cut by more than £1 billion to clear the way for George Osborne to cut taxes for the middle class in the forthcoming Budget. More than 600,000 disabled people will lose a portion of their benefits payments, in a move that will save £1.2 billion by 2020.

March 13

The Sunday Telegraph reports that George Osborne is to use the Budget to announce plans for deeper cuts to public spending in the final years of the Parliament. A Government source said Mr Osborne had “limited scope” for tax cuts or extra spending because the economic outlook has significantly worsened in recent months.

March 15

In a blow to David Cameron, a new poll finds that supporters of Brexit are more likely to vote in the forthcoming referendum which could give the Leave campaign a decisive edge. Analysis of the survey by Sir Lynton Crosby, left, shows that voters who want Britain to leave the European Union are more motivated than those

who say they are in favour of staying in.

March 16

Energy minister Andrea Leadsom, right, claims David Cameron’s EU deal is ‘not enforceable, not legally binding and won’t happen’. Moments later she is forced to deny that she attacked the Prime Minister during a debate on the EU referendum. Mr Osborne delivers his Budget, announcing plans to cut billions of pounds from benefits for the disabled. There are immediate warnings that Tory MPs will rebel to block the plans to cut benefits for hundreds of thousands of disabled people.

March 17

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warns that British voters should “all be worried” about the risk of job cuts and lower wages amid growing concerns of another economic downturn.

March 18

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith dramatically resigns from the Government in protest at the proposed cuts to benefits for the disabled. The former Conservative leader said that plans to cut the benefits paid to the disabled by more than £1 billion were a “compromise too far” and said that welfare for pensioners should be cut instead. His resignation comes despite Mr Osborne offering just hours before to delay the planned changes to disability benefits, with sources saying they would be “kicked into the long grass”.