Donald Macintyre's Sketch: Fist pumps all round as Iain Duncan Smith heralds Arcadia

'I believe that the next five years will see a renaissance in Britain', he said

Donald Macintyre
Thursday 09 July 2015 20:39 BST
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Iain Duncan Smith
Iain Duncan Smith

“Basking” is the word that sprang to mind about Iain Duncan Smith – basking in his new social media stardom as fist-pumper of the year, thanks to his ecstatic display during the Budget speech.

As he rose to speak, backbenchers joyfully fist-pumped behind him; he even fist-pumped himself before saying, absolutely not meaning it: “I must be more statesmanlike.”

Basking in his new bond with George Osborne, who used to be so exasperated with the Work and Pensions Secretary that he tried to get him sacked.

“He is in serious danger of coming to be seen as one of the great chancellors of this country,” IDS affirmed, wholly with the programme. (While sitting benignly beside him, the Chancellor seemed a little distracted during IDS’s speech as if he had heard most of it before. As he had, from his own mouth, the previous day).

And basking in the Arcadian future ushered in by Osborne’s genius measures. “I believe that the next five years will see a renaissance in Britain” gushed IDS, conjuring a powerful image of a new generation of Medicis liberated by the corporate tax cuts to sponsor artists of a quality unseen since Quattrocento Florence.

In some ways this was a surprise. After the binge, the hangover, you might think. Thanks to the deep cuts in tax credits, which shadow Chancellor Chris Leslie not unreasonably pointed out the Government had omitted to share with voters a mere two months ago, the Budget is proving even less of a “one nation” concoction than it seemed on 8 July.

You might have expected minor signs of Tory anxiety. You’d be wrong. They could not have been more impervious to the cavilling of Leslie: “As ever with this Chancellor, it will be the British people who pay the price for his ambitions” etc.

A relaxed Leslie’s criticisms were calm, even jokily conversational. A little of Ed Balls’ outrage wouldn’t have come amiss. But then it’s not Leslie’s fault that the party is leaderless and, for now, policyless. Or that not many Labour MPs turned up to support him.

Puzzlingly, IDS announced that “one of the great things” about the election victory was that “it brought into the House so many of my new colleagues who have run businesses… and know what it is like to cut that pay cheque week in, week out.”

“Cutting the pay cheque” is apparently US corporate speak for paying it. But you had the impression the backbenchers – at least those present – wouldn’t have minded if it meant, er, cutting it.

Just as they wouldn’t mind the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ critique of the “regressive” Budget. That guff about the Tories being the workers’ party had been so much rhetoric. All was right with the world.

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