With Duncan-Smith's resignation, the storm has finally cracked the Tory teacup. And, of course, it has nothing to do with the government's cuts in benefits for the disabled, but everything to do with the race for Cameron's succession under the Brexit banner.
By resigning, Duncan-Smith killed two birds with one stone. As a long-standing Eurosceptic and Tory heavy-weight, he has propelled himself to the head of the party's Brexit faction and appears now as a frontrunner to take over from Cameron.
But, at the same time, by claiming the moral highground over disabled benefits, Duncan-Smith has provided this faction with a more convincing banner. After all, while a majority of Tory voters are probably instinctively Eurosceptics, they also fear the economic chaos that would result from Brexit. Portraying the vote for Brexit as a vote for a "benevolent" Britain which cares for the vulnerable - as opposed to a ruthless EU which does not, as the fate of Greece showed - is a way of shifting the goal posts in the coming referendum. Such seems to be Duncan-Smith's calculation.
And this is precisely why Cameron has shelved this particular benefit cut. But of course, he will find other targets for his cuts.
A fake "benevolence"
For Duncan-Smith to take this do-gooding posture today would be nothing short of hilarious, if it was not so cynical.
Indeed, wasn't it he who instigated the disgusting "skivers and cheaters" media campaign against the disabled, a few years back? Didn't he produce the ill-famed "bedroom tax" which affects mostly the disabled? Wasn't it he, again, who designed a £30/wk cut in ESA benefits for those disabled assessed as unfit to work, but possibly able to work in the future, under the spurious pretext of giving them an "incentive" to go back into work? And although this cut was voted down twice in the Lords, it will go ahead regardless - without Duncan-Smith giving it a second thought!
Likewise, although Duncan-Smith complained bitterly about the government's "benefit cap" last Sunday on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, wasn't he the one who introduced this "cap" in the first place - thereby heavily penalising households with many children and those bearing the consequences of today's exorbitant urban rents?
No, Duncan-Smith and his like are anything but "benevolent". After 6 years in his job as Work and Pensions Secretary, he boasted of his £30bn/yr "savings" through benefit cuts. And more will be "saved", mostly on the backs of the working poor, with the rolling out of his brainchild, the so-called "Universal Credit".
Whatever Duncan-Smith and his Eurosceptic pals may claim, they are on the same side of the barricades as Cameron - the side of the wealthy, against the working class.
Trustees of British capital
Significantly, the one thing which is not contested by anyone in the factional in-fighting within the Tory party, is the raft of handouts to big business and the wealthy included in Osborne's budget.
Yet it is these handouts which are paid for by the social expenditure cuts. Contrary to what Osborne may claim - and what Duncan-Smith used to claim when he was still in office - these cuts have nothing to do with the so-called "deficit". They are only designed to fund the government's massive gifts - past, present and future - to the capitalist class.
Take for instance corporation tax - the tax that companies are supposed to pay on their profits, but that many already manage to avoid paying in full. Who's been paying for its rate being cut from 28% to 20%, since 2010, if not the rest of us? And who else will pay for its additional cut to 17% by 2020, which Osborne announced in his budget? And this is not petty cash - it means around £22bn more in the hands of shareholders since 2010 and another £12bn between now and 2020!
Likewise, this budget's cut in Capital Gains Tax from 28% to 20% is a direct subsidy to speculators of all kinds - especially in finance and real estate. Never mind that this can only encourage speculation even more and generate more economic chaos! But while the only "benefit" we, workers, stand to gain from this cut is rising housing costs, we will still be expected to pay for the resulting shortfall in government receipts! Predictably, however, there's not one whisper of dissent from the "benevolent" Duncan-Smith and his Tory Eurosceptics on these issues!
And this says it all about the bogus referendum in which they want us to vote. If we have a side to take, and we do, it is not in the ballot box over the EU, but in the streets against all those politicians who are conspiring to make the working class pay in order to prop up capitalist profits!