The Quiet Man finds his voice and his mission

Earlier this week Iain Duncan Smith was given the social justice prize at the ConservativeHome awards.  He received an overwhelming majority of votes from the ConservativeHome readers who decided the prizewinners.

It is also good to see that people outside of the Conservative Party are now giving Iain the recognition that he deserves.  Today's Times carries an extended interview with the former Tory leader.  Helen Rumbelow and Alice Miles give IDS a lot of room to explain his compassionate conservatism and conclude:

 "Being deposed does funny things to a politician: they are bored, many get depressed, some go mad. Mr Duncan Smith went back to Gallowgate and Easterhouse, was inspired to found his Centre for Social Justice and dedicated his life to helping the poorest in Britain."

On 29th June 2004 Ben Brogan, then still at The Telegraph, penned a sketch about IDS' launch of the CSJ.  I found Ben's words a huge encouragement at the time (Declaration of Interest - I helped Iain found the Centre) and Iain is certainly beginning to show that a "strong idea" is, indeed, more powerful than a concrete monument.  This is what Ben wrote:

"Iain Duncan Smith popped up yesterday to unveil a memorial to his brief leadership of the Conservative party. Seven months on from his forced removal, his followers gathered for a ceremony to open what they hope will be a monument to his legacy. It's a south London thinktank.  Former American presidents get lavishly endowed libraries charting every minute of their administration; French presidents build themselves glass pyramids, wonky opera houses and national libraries that leak; in the heart of the African jungle there is an empty cathedral bigger than St Peter's built by a now-dead dictator.  On that basis Mr Duncan Smith might have hoped for a bit more than an office next to Lambeth Tube station… {But] it was his message - that politicians can no longer afford to ignore communities racked by alcohol and drug abuse - that mattered to his audience.  They know, as Westminster may be about to discover, that a strong idea coupled with dogged enthusiasm will achieve more than a plaque, a portrait, or a glistening library.”

Related Times link: "David Cameron, most of the Shadow Cabinet and the majority of backbench Conservative MPs are to improve their understanding of social exclusion by spending a week with homeless people, drug addicts, alcoholics, HIV sufferers and victims of sexual abuse."  Also see Ed Vaizey's diary of his time at a homeless shelter.

Comments

[tapestry]

Strange to read the Miles and Rumbellow fiction that IDS' conversion to Social Justice came after he was deposed. They have to work round the fact that The Times and The Sun lead the campaign to get rid of IDS in 2003.

Anyone who attended the October Party Conference would know that IDS' platform pre-being deposed was already based on this exact same message of Social Justice, with individuals from poor commuities attending the 2003 Party Conference, being escorted around by IDS...all totally ignored at the time.

How come it's taken three years for these two eminent journalists to realise the IDS message? Has the Murdoch ban on pro-IDS articles finally been lifted?

When is the ban on Murdoch's dominance of British media coming? That's all we need to know now. Only then will journalists be able to make connection with reality. Until then we will continue to read and view a distorted truth, which suits Murdoch and the powers that keep him in place.

They assassinated IDS, but he refuses to die. How terribly inconvenient.

[Annabel Herriott]

What most folks did not not/could not realise, was that the first day of that Blackpool conference was Yom Kippur no less. The day of atonement. Anyone not sure, please drag the family bible out of the attic, and check Leviticus 16, verses 20 - 22. The scapegoat. The sacred animal who gets all the sins of the tribe confessed over him, then sent off into the wilderness. Good on you IDS, you made a superb scapegoat for us wicked Tories, and have we, or have we not, been MUCH better people since your noble sacrifice???
I rest my case. Stranger things happen in real life than in fiction. Any one of the Jewish faith will recognise this strange synchronicity immediately!

[Lucinda]

On bhalf of the Labour Party let me say the more publicity IDS and his extrememly recationary ideas on "social justice" get, the better.

Incidentally, at the heart of the idea of justice lies equality. Tories are not committed to equality of opportunity never mind equality of outcome, so the whole concept lacks fundamental credibility.

[Editor]

Labour's record on poverty lacks any credibility, Lucinda. Social mobility is now in decline and many communities are overwhelmed by crime, drugs and hopelessness. For too long Labour's claim to the moral high ground on poverty has been unchallenged. I understand why you hate being told that your policies have failed the poorest Britons - your Emperor has no clothes moment - but if Tories commit to welfare reform (which Labour has ducked), the strengthening of families (which you have done nothing on), provide many more drug rehab places (which you haven't) and provide real community-based policing for the hardest-pressed neighbourhoods Britain will be able to free many people from poverty and direct scarce extra resources to the very old, very sick and very young who society will always owe a special duty of care.

[Tory Loyalist]

I was very excited when Duncan Smith was elected. I thought that for the first time since Thatcher was betrayed, one of our own leads the party.

My excitement did not last long. Instead of securing his base and filling the ranks of the leadership with Thatcherites and traditional Tories, IDS allowed himself to be bullied into betraying his staunchest supporters.

As a result, nobody was there to help him when his "new friends" plunged the knife into his back.

Lucinda may be a socialist but she is of course absolutely right to say that the notion of conservative egalitarianism is oxymoronic.

Conservatives believe in a pyramidal social structure with God and the monarch at its apex and the various other elements of society reaching downwards towards the base.

That is pretty much the way of nature even in atheistic and supposedly "socialist" societies. We Tories have spent decades rightly deriding Champagne Socialists, so pardon me if the notion of a Old Etonian banging on about equality smacks me of out hypocriting the hypocrites.

However, as Christians, Conservatives believe that the privileged are morally obliged to help and succour the poor and deprived.

Very probably IDS actually believes in these tenets of Conservatism, but personally I deplore the use of the left-wing term "social justice" in this context.

[Richard Bailey]

Even Thatcher did more for Britain's poorest than Blair or Brown ever will - just by letting them buy their own homes.

Redistributing wealth, socialist style, is utterly pointless unless you educate and help the recipients to make use of it.

Only Conservatism will ever make a real difference to Britain's poorest, because our Labour friends just can't bear the little bit of hard work and hard choices required to make the difference.

If it isn't handed on a plate, it isn't any good.

[changetowin]

True name of this site should be IDShome.com

Many of us remember what an utter mess Duncan Smith left our party in. He was a disaster as leader.

[Sally Roberts]

Annabel @ 10:15 - Yes I recognised the theme straight away! Well done on such a thoughtful comment.

[Ted]

Changetowin - so how does that ever so helpful posting address the thread?

It's not about IDS as a party leader but about his championing of social justice. Many successful poiticians fail miserably once they lead office or become whingers on the sidelines, some less successful grab the opportunity and realise they can still help change their society. IDS is a good man and in this arena it is often a Quiet Man (or Woman) who is most effective.

Lucinda's posting shows how Labour has lost its purpose - meaningless phrases not underpinned with competent, effective policies. Equality of opportunity - what does that mean today in Glasgow, South London etc? "equality of outcome" for Gods sake! Meaningless phrases, repeated like rote learnings.

She's right about reactionary - she means it as a term of opprobrium - but I would say that we need to react against the continuation of an underclass. React, for example, against letting children lose the freedoms that education offers because of their parents dis-organised family lives, poor teaching, drugs and crime.

The so called "Progressives" are the true reactionaries harking back to Attlee & Bevan for solutions to problems six decades later - IDS and many in this party are looking forwards not backwards for solutions.

[Tory Loyalist]

To be fair to Duncan Smith, he had little or no chance to leave his mark on the party. All we saw was the unappetising spectacle of some extremely unpleasant people (The Nasty Party?) jockeying for power and vying with each other to betray the leader.

IDS brought a lot of this on himself by signally failing to stand up to these malignants.

While I have no time for Cameron, he seems to have played no significent part in this unsavoury escapade, however, all the chief participants are still on the stage.

So tell me, changetowin, doesn't that mean we're still the Nasty Party, indeed the same thoroughly unpleasant party which betrayed the saviour of our country, the great Margaret Thatcher?

[Voice from the South West]

For once I agree with Changetowin, IDS was a complete disaster as leader. To say I was relieved when he was deposed would be an understatement.

And in response to people who argue that IDS never had enough time to prove himself – IDS had more than enough time during those years to show he was capable of leadership. The simple truth is that he was never able to display those qualities. Whether IDS was capable of leadership in the first place is another question – however his inability to show his leadership qualities was the fundamental reason why MPs, and indeed the wider Party, lost confidence with him in such a short time.

[sbjme19]

I like and respect IDS and I wish him well with his project. However I think he was a very strange choice for leader and symptomatic of the out-of-touch state the party had got into. The truth is you've got to have a leader the Labour Party feel worried about electorally.

[Ted]

VftSW, Changetowin.sbjme19

it's past, it's gone, it doesn't matter anymore. We spent from 1989 till 2005 looking bacckwards, blaming this person or that, this clique or that. Enough.

I think Major should have resigned over the ERM, that Hague was the wrong choice, that Ken Clarkes obsession with a leadership his members could not support was a cause of difficulty - so what? what can you or I change?

Questions - is IDS today providing this country a service? is he reflecting the thoughts of a large portion of our membership? what do you think about what the CSJ says? when we get back to power what should we do about the problems of social breakdown, crime, drug addiction? Those matter, who did what in 2004 or for that matter in Robert Peels administration don't.

[Denis Cooper]

I'm pretty sure that without IDS as leader the Tory party would not have started to campaign against the EU Constitution; Blair would not have been pressured into agreeing to hold a referendum; Chirac would not have been forced to follow suit; there would have been no opportunity for the French to say 'no'; and therefore by now that Constitution would have become the supreme source of legal authority for all EU member states including the UK. That outweighs everything else.

[changetowin]

Ted,

Fair enough. I just get a little fed up with how the current leader of our party is constantly attacked on this site, while IDS is written up as some kind of Gandhi figure. Maybe IDS just had bad advisors!!! ;-) (only joking Tim!)

On a serious note I am the last one to attack a serious focus on social justice. I believe it was the much derided (on this site) Michael Portillo who first introduced this concept into the modern Conservative Party's lexicon. I suspect many on this site shuddered when he did so.

So I congratulate Duncan Smith for his work in this area. But I do so with a caveat. Of course there is a place for people of faith in a broad and generous Conservative family. However, the party must be very careful when it comes to converting beliefs of this sort into policy. Married families are best, says Duncan Smith. Not much to disagree with that. But how does this translate into policy? We can't force people to stay married and a change in the tax system can only do so much (and remember that most of you guys don't like using the tax system to influence behaviour!!!).

So I welcome Duncan Smith's aims (who wouldn't?). But until he outlines how he's going to get us there, I reserve the right to be suspicious. Not only because he was such a dire party leader, but because so far he has (to the best of my knowledge) offered nothing more than platitudes, small worthy schemes and reheated moral authoritarianism. Fine in itself, but not a programme for government.

[Voice from the South West]

Ted - I know its all in the past and I'm not losing sleep over it! I was merely making a point.

[tapestry]

Changetowin, the point is why do the Times journalists have to pretend that IDS only discovered Social Justice after they had kicked him from the leadership, which was manifestly not the case?

Murdoch wants to have it both ways as usual. I'm sick of having to read things that are untrue. Never mind whether IDS is Ghandi or he isn't. Why can't we just have the facts without the lies and the spin?

[Ted]

changetowin
They drive me mad also - just get equally as het up by all the raking over the past. Though I do laugh when I read some (usually with monikers identifying themselves as loyal or such) who must be constructs of nulab apparatchiks.

Reminds me - I let Lucinda (not a troll!) get away with "at the heart of the idea of justice lies equality". My old law lecturer would have pointed out in the UK it's "equity" not equality which brings in principles of fairness and flexibility to the aplication of law. Plato, Socrates and philosophers throughout the ages have never agreed a precise meaning for justice.

If she meant social justice then again it's again not easily definable - its about fairness, just treatment, fair share of the social benefits or common wealth. Nowhere is it about equality - fair shares doesn't mean equal shares, just treatment doesn't mean equal treatment (its equal to demand all UK residents don't wear religious symbols of any kind, it's not necessarily fair or just)

[Denis Cooper]

"I let Lucinda (not a troll!) get away with "at the heart of the idea of justice lies equality"." That's the danger of adopting the language of your opponents - in the end they get you not just talking like them, but thinking like them.

[S.E.L]

Lucinda @ 10:27,

Social justice is one of those terms that can be defined to mean just about anything. Equality is a core idea of lefty ideology, not of social justice. Instead of equality one can think in terms of entitlements (Nozick). People should be allowed to do what they want with their property, including giving it (ALL of it) to their children. To deny a person the option of spending their money on medical procedures (on an MRI scan for their mother for example), is simply sick. If someone wants to take on a second part-time job to better themselves and their family, they should not be taxed at a higher rate. These are examples of social justice that do not depend on equality.

[tapestry]

IDS' point is that Central government deprives local organisations of the independence they need to solve their own local problems. Social Justice to IDS is about results not rhetoric.

Forget about socialist or capitalist dogmas, Lucinda etal. It's about practicalities.

Governments of all hues are not the solution but the problem.

Conservatives are more equitable than Labour in that they are willing to let go and permit local organisations to lift people out of desperate circumstances where they can.

Labour are obsessed with measuring devices to establish equality, taking control away from local organisations (as are the EU). This causes the desperation. Gordon Brown would be a disaster being a bigger control freak even than Blair - if that were possible.

[James Maskell]

Some of changetowins comments just come across as blind loyalty to the current leadership and shunning any other person who ever led the Conservatives. changetowin spends their time defending Cameron to the death yet when we discuss the leader who pretty much set the foundation for Camerons own arguments to come to the fore, changetowin is not happy and must criticise them! If it werent for IDS, we wouldnt have a Cameron. Im very suprized by changetowins posts on this thread.

[Fred Baker]

If IDS had been left in place, with the support he deserved, we would have had a fair chance of winning the last General Election. The Howard/Davis led campaign was a total farce and disaster. I still think Israeli interests over Iraq played a part in his removal.

[Umbrella Man]

You may be right to a very small extent Fred. Crispin Blunt hated Ian Duncan Smith's support for Israel. But IDS went because the party did not think him up to the job. He would have survived otherwise. The party was right to oust him but he is stronger today because of his social justice crusade. He has done more good as an ex-leader than as leader and certainly more good than Hague, Major and Howard have done as ex-leaders.

[Fred Baker]

"The party did not think him up to the job"

Duncan Smith was voted in by 155,933 people and ousted by just 8 (15 votes).

You missed the point. Duncan Smith was a Catholic. What did Davis, Howard, Bercow and friends have in common?

[Tory Loyalist]

I don't understand the point you are trying to make Fred. If it concerns Israelis I am in the dark because IDS (who you seem to support) was very pro-Israel, and David Davis (who you say has something in common with Howard and Bercow) is not Jewish.

Reading the posts of Ted changetowin and others I find it difficult to understand how they can continue to feel a sense of attachment ot the Party after the endless unpleasantness they describe and their reactions to it. Most "normal" people, after all, despise all political parties.

I am a Tory, through and through. I don't change my ideas to suit fashion. These people do, so why do they still feel the Conservative Party is important to them?

[Cllr Graham Smith]

Lucinda wrote: "Incidentally, at the heart of the idea of justice lies equality."

I always thought truth was at the heart of justice and that everyone should be treated equally under the law, which conveys a somewhat different connotation.

[John Irvine]

Exactly.

There is no equality in nature and so equality can only be in principle be achieved - never successfully in practice - by suppressing freedom.

Because we Conservatives uphold freedom it follows that notions of equality must be anathema to us.

[Richard Beddall]

What planet do you people live on, MPs who
are paid to legislate have allready given 75% of their power's to the EU.By 2010 Britain will have it's first pupp'et govenment.AS a conservative party member of 42 years it hurts me to say it,our party has
moved so far to the left and is so commited
to the EU that it is not only unfit to goven
it is morally bankrupt.

[John Irvine]

"Good on you IDS, you made a superb scapegoat for us wicked Tories, and have we, or have we not, been MUCH better people since your noble sacrifice???"

For utter fatuousness, Annabel Herriott's post breaks new records.

IDS did not sacrifice himself. He was betrayed by his fellow Tories in the most appalling manner which - some have evidently already have forgotten - involved the hounding of his wife and the vile blackening of her reputation.

The answer to Tory Loyalist's point is that both party members and electorate have the memory of goldfish in a bowl. If it were not so the Tory Party would have few votes and fewer members because no decent people would want to be associated with an organisation that has betrayed its leaders so often.

Hague and Howard left quickly because they knew what was coming if they didn't. I wonder how it will end for Cameron?

[Voice from the South West]

Lets make this clear now. IDS would NEVER have won the 2005 General Election. Period.

[Rachel Joyce]

"Labour's record on poverty lacks any credibility, Lucinda. Social mobility is now in decline and many communities are overwhelmed by crime, drugs and hopelessness. For too long Labour's claim to the moral high ground on poverty has been unchallenged.....but if Tories commit to welfare reform (which Labour has ducked), the strengthening of families (which you have done nothing on), provide many more drug rehab places (which you haven't) and provide real community-based policing for the hardest-pressed neighbourhoods Britain will be able to free many people from poverty and direct scarce extra resources to the very old, very sick and very young who society will always owe a special duty of care"
- well said, Tim. That is why I am a Tory - a common sense, evidence based approach to issues that we all care about - as compassionate as anyone else, just more sensible about how to bring about real change for the better.

[Jamie Oliver's Sausage]

>>Lets make this clear now. IDS would NEVER have won the 2005 General Election. Period.<<

Yo VSW! Great point.

Could you emind me who actually did win the 2005 General Election?

Possibly my memory's fading as fast as yours.

[matt wright]

John Irvine said - "There is no equality in nature and so equality can only be in principle be achieved - never successfully in practice - by suppressing freedom".

This is an important point, put the other way socialists always end up realising that ordinary people won't do what they are told by utopians and so the state interferes to try and level everyone down. When they resist this the state becomes even more heavy handed with even an even lower lowest common denominator.

For me Conservatism is about how we marry freedom with responsibility by harnessing human nature in a positive way.

Matt

[Fred Baker]

>>Lets make this clear now. IDS would NEVER have won the 2005 General Election. Period.<<

Shouting proves nothing. He came over lots better than Howard and gained loads of seats in the CC Elections. In June 2003 Iain Duncan Smith had gained a five point lead over the Labour Party. Three years later we were little better off.

He was shot at dawn by Murdoch, Portillo, Davis, Howard and others for whom the Party would be far better off without.

[Jon White]

Tory Loyalist @ 11.05 posted:

"However, as Christians, Conservatives believe that the privileged are morally obliged to help and succour the poor and deprived."

Have I missed something? Is it now a pre-requisite that to be a Tory one has to be a Christian?

I am, but I certainly would not exclude anyone who isn't from being a Tory. Being a Tory is about a vision of a society based on meritocracy, reward according to contribution, a belief in the Nation State, etc etc. These are secular, not religious, ideas.

(I also believe that the better off have some moral obligations towards the less well off, BTW. I believe in 'hand ups' - i.e. giving people the opportunity and means to help themselves, not 'hand outs'.)

[Jon White]

IDS would probably NOT have won the 2005 election. I personally believe that he would have done better than Howard, but we will never know.

I think that way he was deposed was disgraceful, but Fred Baker's posts that imply that this was something to do with him not being Jewish show only Fred Baker's paranoid anti-semetism, nothing else.

The one thing that we as Tories should be grateful for to IDS (and Hague), is that whatever their failings (and they were many) they prevented Clark from getting the leadership. They therefore both ensured that we are still out of the Euro. For that act alone, they should be thanked by all genuine Tories.

[Mike Christie]

"Tories are not committed to equality of opportunity never mind equality of outcome"

Thank God we're not committed to equality of outcome. I thought even most of the Labour party had abandonded this lunacy. Did the wonders of equality of outcome in the USSR teach you nothing? Equality of outcome means poverty for everyone (apart from chosen party faithful). That way lies permanent failure.

Thank you for reminding us what we're fighting against.

[Graeme Archer]

I don't understand at all what IDS' qualities vis a vis his leadership have to do with his commitment to Social Justice? Or am I missing something? I'm a very poor thinker, as is often pointed out to me. Or is it just more fun to rerake the past than it is to focus on the truly noble work that he and the CSJ are doing?

Lucinda: have a long bath darling and calm down. You ghastly socialists don't have the monopoly on justice, whatever you tell yourselves to make up for your failure to achieve anything of lasting benefit for the working classes. You certainly don't have anything to tell the Conservative Party about how to care about the condition of the people. Don't agree? Feel free to drop round Hackney anytime you like and I'll show you to your face the impact your revolting, rubbish, hateful policies have on the people you claim to care so much about.