Why stubborn Iain Duncan Smith is no statesman

The minister's reluctance to abandon his disastrous Work Programme is further proof of his pig-headedness

'A neurotic authoritarian who wants to be powerful and expects to be obeyed': Iain Duncan Smith at last year's Conservative party conference. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

At a time of miserable conditions for the poor, sick and disabled people, the administration of the welfare state is a disaster. The grand projects the Department for Work and Pensions has launched since the general election have been bureaucratic fantasies and practical catastrophes. Ministers have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds of public money – Tory ministers, mark you, who pose as the defenders of hard-working taxpayers. For all that, Iain Duncan Smith tramps on without a thought of changing his ways: a character study in destructive pig-headedness.

At some level, he must know he is failing on all fronts. He and his state-sponsored propagandists pulsate with aggression. Anyone who tries to investigate his department is met with obfuscation and intimidation...

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