'All his fault': David Cameron blamed George Osborne for disability benefits row, ...

[Denzil_DC]

... Cabinet source claims

David Cameron has reportedly told a Cabinet colleague in private that the Chancellor was entirely to blame for the devastating row over cuts to disability benefits.

As the Conservatives were engulfed by a bitter civil war following Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation from the Cabinet, The Times cited a Cabinet source as saying the Prime Minister had turned on George Osborne, his long-standing political ally.

However Downing Street denied the report and insisted Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne were as close as ever.

There has been speculation that the Chancellor could be forced to resign and that the Government’s Finance Bill could be defeated in the Commons this week.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iain-duncan-smith-resigns-all-his-fault-david-cameron-blamed-george-osborne-for-disability-benefits-a6943366.html

I'll hold off popping my champagne until Cameron expresses his full support for Osborne.

[chapdrum]

1. Cameron & Osborne

should be honorary invitees to take up permanent residence at the
space station that some One Percenters have bruited about.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Cameron may well be right on this...

BUT who spent the last 6 years 'letting George do it' on just about everything, so that he wouldn't have to actually do any work, especially any that involved attention to detail?!

Anyway, they are at present making the Labour Party look like sweet unity in comparison!

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Cameron had given Osborne every single announcement in the week up to the budget

including things that didn't really look like financial matters at all, such as longer school hours and making them all academies, or a mayor for the Solent. It was as if they'd decided that everything the government did was the responsibility of the Treasury. Which I'm sure must have been OKed by Cameron.

The Tory form of government seems to have become: Cameron does the negotiations abroad, Osborne runs the country, and cabinet members do the media interviews to defend whatever Osborne has decided.

[Ironing Man]

4. ...

one is reminded very much of the Blair-Bown years - Blair did foreign policy, Brown did domestic policy. if i were a Tory MP hoping to keep my seat in 2020, that would not be a happy comparision to make...

while i have little sympathy for IDS given his lack of resignation in the last 6 years over - what appears to me to be the same thing - and, one has to ask, given the vitriol of the EU debate and his own less than stellar competance in running DWP, whether he was likely to survive the next reshffle - it does look like the episode has shot the Osbourne leadership fox.

Tory MP's are crawling out of the woodwork to slag Osborne down, even if IDS was not well-regarded on the back benches - perhaps Osbornes' leadership pid was based on Dave being powerful, and George being Daves' choice. well, Cameron has more than lost a bit of his lustre over the EU, so now people are less reticent about saying rude things about Daves freinds..?

if this goes on and on then i think it cold do sufficient damage to the Tories that they'll lose the 2020GE, i sppose the crux of that will be whether the Cabinet and MP's get a grip of themselves once the EU Ref is done and dusted and, presmably - in the face of Tory infighting - Labours poll ratings go up and stay and there...

one is tempted to suggest that in order to win all Labour has to do is keep quiet, but there are far too many serious and deeply and genuinely held differences for that to be the case.

[Denzil_DC]

5. The Times article on which the Indie based its story is paywalled,

but here's a screenshot of some of it:



Meanwhile ...



I'm sure that'll work out just swimmingly for arch-strategist David Cameron.


In other news, ex-colleagues of Iain Duncan Smith (no hyphen - he's not that much of a nob) are queuing up to spill the beans:

[LeftishBrit]

6. I only wish all this party implosion had happened before the election!

[Denzil_DC]

7. I was expecting some right tasty infighting once the referendum was announced,

but not quite on this mega scale and not quite so soon!

Though part of me wonders what else this floorshow is distracting us from ...

[Denzil_DC]

8. Oh dear. There it is:

George Osborne has David Cameron's 'full confidence' as he tells MPs to approve Budget with a £4bn hole

David Cameron was today forced to insist he “absolutely” has full confidence in under-fire George Osborne as MPs prepare to vote on a Budget containing a £4.4billion black hole.

The PM's official spokeswoman admitted no new savings will be drawn up to replace the now-abandoned £4.4billion cut to disability benefits until the Autumn.

It leaves a gaping hole in the Chancellor's Budget ahead of tomorrow night's crunch vote in the House of Commons.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn this morning called on Mr Osborne to resign.

Asked if the PM retains full confidence in his beleaguered Chancellor, Mr Cameron's spokeswoman said: “Absolutely."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-david-camerons-full-7600716

Bbbbut it's too early in the day for champagne!

So who'll be Osborne's replacement?

[Ironing Man]

9. Philip Hammond...

Hammond is Eurosceptic enough to be seen as an olive branch to the loons, he's a 'big beast' having done Defence and FCO, he's not got involved in the squalid row, he's got a financial/business background and he sorted out MOD to widespread astonishment/acclaim. and, perhaps most importantly, the various contenders for Daves chair don't see him as a rival.

that said, Dave pulled some otherwise unheard of, recently elected MP to do DWP, so perhaps he wants to get the next generation into heavy hitting cabinet roles - perhaps he wants to skip George and go for someone much younger and untainted by, what will be, a decade of asterity and bad news in time for the 2020 GE..?

[Denzil_DC]

10. Interesting suggestion. Not so sure about the Eurosceptic thing, though

(it's the Mail, of course):

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warns EU will fall apart if Britain quits as new poll finds Brits have no faith in Cameron's ability to get a good deal

The EU could fall apart if Britain votes to leave, Philip Hammond warned today as a new poll suggested voters are moving further towards backing Brexit.

The Foreign Secretary predicted the 'contagion' of Britain quitting the EU would spread to other member states and said the UK would only be able to watch from the sidelines as the EU 'lurches in very much the wrong direction'.

...

Mr Hammond's intervention has caused further outrage among Eurosceptics, who are angry that Mr Cameron allows pro-EU ministers to speak in favour of staying in but is blocking anti-EU ministers from speaking out until after the Cabinet meets following this week's EU summit.

Warning that Britain would have to forge a new relationship with a very different kind of EU if voters opted to leave, Mr Hammond told the Andrew Marr Show: 'What I think I fear and many people in Europe fear is that without Britain Europe would lurch in very much the wrong direction.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3446576/Foreign-Secretary-Philip-Hammond-warns-EU-fall-apart-Britain-quits-new-poll-finds-Brits-no-faith-David-Cameron-s-ability-good-deal.html

As for not getting involved in the squalid row (Mail again, they love this stuff) ...

Tory meltdown as Foreign Secretary hurls four-letter abuse at anti-EU rival after trying to hide secret report on PM's deal

The Tory feud over Europe turned nasty last night when it emerged that Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond hurled foul-mouthed abuse at an anti- Brussels Conservative grandee.

Mr Hammond called Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash ‘a total s***’ for publishing a secret Brussels legal report on the EU deal negotiated by David Cameron – in direct defiance of the Foreign Secretary’s orders to keep it under wraps.

...

Mr Hammond’s ‘total s***’ comment echoes John Major’s infamous outburst in the 1990s, when he called rebellious Eurosceptic Tory Ministers ‘bastards’ in an unguarded comment picked up by a TV microphone left on after an interview. Mr Major also reportedly called fellow EU leaders a ‘bunch of s***s’ in a private comment.

Shocked MPs looked on as the usually mild-mannered Mr Hammond, who is backing the Prime Minister’s bid to keep Britain in the EU, exploded in rage at Sir Bill.

His undiplomatic outburst came after he was quizzed by the cross-party Commons European Scrutiny Committee on the EU deal.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3467459/Tory-meltdown-Foreign-Secretary-hurls-four-letter-abuse-anti-EU-rival-trying-hide-secret-report-PM-s-deal.html

[Ironing Man]

11. oh he's proper eurosceptic...

he's Eurosceptic without being a headbanging loon, he's more Eurosceptic than, for example Cameron, Osborne or Theresa May, though of course 'Eurosceptic' has changed its meaning between the John Major years and now...

[T_i_B]

14. By the standards of the 90's I would certainly be a Eurosceptic

There's a lot of things I dislike about the EU, I don't want further integration and I am hugely grateful that we've been able to keep out of the Euro.

However, by the standards of 2016 I would be considered to be a raging Europhile as I do at least recognise how vital it is for us to be part of the EU single market, and I want the EU to be reformed, which nessessarily means remaining part of it.

[T_i_B]

13. Phillip Hammond?

He's dull, uncharismatic, and after his role in all this renegotiation rubbish I doubt that he could appease the anti-EU loons.

His main plus point is that he could be seen as a "safe pair of hands", which certainly stands out in contrast to Boris Johnson, and increasingly Gideon Osborne as well.

[Bad Dog]

12. Osborne has always been the toady hanging on the tails of those higher up in the pecking order.

It doesn't matter how much brown nosing he does he'll never be treated with respect.

At the Bullingdon Club he was known as Oik, on account of having gone to St Paul's as opposed to somewhere proper like Eton or Harrow. It's only surmise, but one suspects he was rather more often the Bullingdon's raggee than the ragger, with one such ragging a neat metaphor for what has been happening to him all week. The young Osborne was held upside down by his fellow members, who banged his head on the floor each time he failed to answer correctly the question: "What are you?" He got it eventually. The unexpurgated answer was: "I am a despicable cunt."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/25/osborne-rothschild-deripaska-corfu