George Iain Duncan Smith MP (born 9
April 1954), often referred to as IDS, is a British politician. He is Member of Parliament for the
constituency of Chingford and Woodford Green.
He was leader of the Conservative Party from 12
September 2001 to 6 November 2003. He lost a vote of confidence on 29 October of that year and stepped down
eight days later, with Michael Howard assuming the post.
On 7 December 2005, Duncan Smith was appointed Chairman of
the Social Justice Policy Group of the Conservative Party by David Cameron.
Early Life
Iain Duncan Smith was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the
son of the World War II Royal Air Force
highly-decorated ace Group Captain W. G. G. Duncan Smith and his wife Pamela, a
ballerina, whom he married in 1946. Pamela's maternal grandmother, Iain's great-grandmother, was
Ellen Oshey, a Japanese woman. Iain Duncan Smith is therefore one-eighth Japanese. He is also a
distant relative of George Bernard Shaw, the playwright and socialist[1].
Duncan Smith was educated at HMS Conway, a naval training school on the isle of Anglesey, where he played
rugby union in the position of fly-half alongside Clive
Woodward at centre. He also attended the Royal Military Academy
Sandhurst. He joined the Scots Guards in 1975, with his six-year service including a
spell in (then) Rhodesia and in Northern Ireland.
Duncan Smith converted to Roman Catholicism as a teenager, making him the first
member of that faith to head a major British political party. He speaks Italian.
On leaving the Guards, he joined the Conservative Party and took up employment at The General Electric Company in 1981. He married Elizabeth "Betsy" Fremantle, daughter
of the 5th Baron Cottesloe, in 1982. They have four children, who are being raised at least nominally Roman Catholic. Duncan
Smith fought the safe Labour seat of Bradford West in the 1987 general
election. At the following general election, he stood for his current seat (Chingford and Woodford Green) in the 1992 general election, succeeding Norman
Tebbit on his retirement.
Member of Parliament
A committed Eurosceptic, Duncan Smith was a constant thorn in the side of
John Major's 1992-1997 government, doing his level best to disrupt Major's pro-European
agenda at the time (something that would often be raised during his own leadership when he called for the party to unite behind
him). Duncan Smith remained on the backbenches until 1997, when he was promoted by
William Hague to the shadow cabinet as Shadow
Social Security Secretary. He moved in 1999 to replace John Maples as Shadow Defence
Secretary.
Bid for Conservative Leadership
Hague resigned after Labour's re-election victory in the 2001 general
election, and Duncan Smith was elected leader
of the Conservatives over Kenneth Clarke on 12
September 2001. The Duncan Smith campaign successfully called for the expulsion of
Edgar Griffin from the party and after elected to the leadership the Conservative Party
suspended the right wing Conservative Monday Club and unsuccessfully attempted
to expel the right wing activist Michael Keith Smith. Duncan Smith was initially
seen as an outsider candidate, but his support was bolstered when Margaret Thatcher
publicly announced her support.
Leader of the Opposition
His eventual victory was also thought to have been helped by the fact that, in the final vote, his opponent was
Kenneth Clarke, whose strong support for the European
Union is known to put many party members off supporting him as a leadership candidate. Iain Duncan Smith, being a strong
Eurosceptic, was more popular.
As a mark of respect for the victims of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the announcement of his win was delayed until 13 September 2001.
Duncan Smith is a Catholic convert, and his election led to the situation where the leaders
of the three main British political parties had Catholic ties. (Charles Kennedy, the
former leader of the Liberal Democrats is a Catholic; former Prime Minister Tony Blair is married to a
Catholic, Cherie Booth, and regularly attends Mass
in Westminster Cathedral). Britain has never had a Catholic Prime Minister, and
the Catholic Relief Act 1829 makes it illegal for a Roman Catholic to directly
or indirectly advise the Sovereign on appointments in the Church of England (one of the responsibilities of the Prime Minister is
the selection of Church of England bishops for
appointment by the Queen). However, in today's Britain the faith of
the Prime Minister is not as important an issue as it once was.
In 2002, Michael Crick on the TV programme Newsnight caused some embarrassment when probing Duncan Smith's curriculum vitae, which had been in
circulation for years, for example, being reproduced in the authoritative annual Dod's Parliamentary Companion for the previous ten years. The CV claimed that he had
attended the University of Perugia when he had in fact only attended a series of
short private language courses across the road from the university, and a claim that he had attended the prestigious-sounding
Durnsford College of Management turned out to refer to some weekend courses at GEC's staff college[2].
Duncan Smith's election as party leader was overshadowed by the events of 11 September
2001. He proved not to be a particularly effective public speaker in the rowdy atmosphere of
Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons. His seeming troubles with a "frog in his throat" throughout most of his two
years as leader prompted Private Eye to refer to him incessantly as "Iain Duncan
Cough". As well as this, there were continued rumours of discontent among his backbenchers, not dampened by his warning to
his party in November 2002: "My message is simple and stark, unite or die".
The 2002 Conservative Party conference saw an attempt to turn Duncan Smith's lack of charisma into a positive boon, with his
much-quoted line, "do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man". Unfortunately the line was as much derided as it was
admired; during PMQs Labour backbenchers would raise their fingers to their lips and say "shush" when he was speaking. The
following year, his conference speech appeared to have abandoned this technique in favour of an aggressive hard-man act that few
found convincing (even if the party members in the hall punctuated the speech with several ovations). The most remembered
soundbite from the speech was his, "the quiet man is here to stay, and he's turning up the volume."
Duncan Smith stated in December 2002 that he intended to be party leader for a "very long time to come." This did little to
quell the speculation in Westminster regarding his future. On 21 February 2003, The Independent newspaper published a story saying that a
number of MPs were attempting to start the process of declaring a vote of
confidence in Mr Duncan Smith. Apparently many Conservative MPs considered IDS to be unelectable.
These worries came to a head in October 2003. IDS was further hit when Michael Crick once again revealed he had compiled
embarrassing evidence, this time of dubious salary claims IDS made on behalf of his wife, paid out of the public purse, during
the period from September 2001 and December 2002. The ensuing scandal, known as "Betsygate"
weakened his already tenuous position[3].
Vote of No Confidence
Under leadership vote of confidence rules, 15 percent of Conservative MPs (at this point 25 MPs) had to write to the Chairman
of the 1922 Committee demanding the vote. On 26
October, amid mounting claims that the threshold of 25 was about to be reached, Duncan Smith made an appearance on
television daring his opponents to show their hand by the evening of 29 October, or to
withdraw their challenge. He also stated that he would not step down if a vote was called. Iain Duncan Smith's demand that the 25
MPs write to the Chairman by the 29th of October had no bearing on Party regulations. Had the votes not been delivered until
later the vote of no confidence would still have gone ahead. Nevertheless, by 28 October, 25
Conservative MPs had indeed signed on to demand a vote.
After the vote was announced, Duncan Smith made an appearance in front of Conservative Party headquarters in Smith Square, where he stated that he was going to "absolutely" contest the vote. It was held on the 29th
of October, and Duncan Smith lost, 90-75. The following day, The Guardian's
leading article quipped 'the quiet man has been silenced.'
Backbenches
Since leaving office, he has established the Centre for Social Justice, a
centre-right thinktank which aims to work to solve the problems facing Britain's inner cities. It has been successful in ensuring
Social Justice is a significant part of the evolving Conservative party agenda.
On 7 December 2005, Duncan Smith was appointed Chairman of
the Social Justice Policy Group. The group's aim is to "study the causes and consequences of poverty in Britain and seek
practical ideas to empower the least well-off," and is one of several set up by the new Conservative Party leader
David Cameron, Duncan Smith will be joined in this task by Deputy Chair Debbie Scott the
Chief Executive the charity Tomorrow's People. The group is expected to demand a tougher line on family values. [1]
He was re-elected comfortably in Chingford and
Woodford Green at the 2005 General Election, almost
doubling his majority, and remains a backbencher for the Conservative Party.
Personal Life
On 6 November, shortly after IDS was forced from office, his novel The Devil's Tune was released. This book received heavily critical reviews, perhaps the most
famous from Sam Leith in The Daily Telegraph, which
said, "Really, it's terrible... Terrible, terrible, terrible." The book was never published in paperback.
In September 2006 he was one of 14 authors of a report concerning Anti-Semitism in Britain.
Satire
Duncan Smith is a keen Tottenham Hotspur supporter and season ticket holder.[4]
As Gareth Southgate remarked about Sven-Goran
Eriksson's performance at half-time in the World Cup quarter-final defeat
against Brazil in Japan in 2002: "We were expecting Winston Churchill and instead we got Iain Duncan Smith."
After becoming leader of the Conservatives, Duncan Smith was the subject of scathing criticism on the popular British
satirical programme Have I Got News for You. In particular,
Paul Merton insisted that he was in fact two people, Iain and Duncan Smith: the first
identical twins jointly to lead a major British political party. When his full name of George Iain Duncan Smith was pointed out
during one episode, Merton exclaimed, "There's three of 'em?". Meanwhile Ian Hislop commented
on a picture of a cardboard cut-out of Duncan Smith. Hislop at that point was asked by comedian Ross
Noble if it was a cardboard cut-out, to which the Private Eye editor replied:
"Nope, that was the real thing."
For details of his shadow cabinets, see UK Shadow Cabinet 2001-2003.
References
- ^ Duncan Smith's
secret samurai past, Guardian Unlimited, September
3, 2001
- ^ Tory leader's education under scrutiny, BBC News,
19 December 2002
- ^ Aide's email
warning of risk to IDS triggered investigation, Andrew Sparrow and Benedict Brogan, Daily Telegraph October 13, 2003
- ^ Burt, Jason. "Spurs' quandary:
deciding if home is where the Hart is", The Independent, 22 December 2002. Retrieved on 2007-01-13.
External links
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