Duncan Smith, Sir Iain

Background

Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Chingford and Woodford Green, formerly Chingford, since 1992. The son of W. G. G. Duncan Smith, a Royal Air Force flying-ace, Duncan Smith was born in Edinburgh and raised in Solihull. After education at the HMS Conway training school and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he served in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981, seeing tours in Northern Ireland and in Rhodesia. He joined the Conservative Party in 1981. After unsuccessfully contesting Bradford West in 1987, he was elected to Parliament at the 1992 general election. He was a backbencher during the premiership of John Major (in office from 1990 to 1997). In the shadow cabinet of William Hague, Duncan Smith served as Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security between 1997 and 1998, and as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence from 1998 to 2001. Following the resignation of William Hague, Duncan Smith won election as Conservative Party leader in 2001, partly owing to the support of Margaret Thatcher for his Eurosceptic beliefs. However, many Conservative MPs came to consider him incapable of winning the next general election, and in 2003 he lost a vote of confidence in his leadership; he immediately resigned and was succeeded by Michael Howard. Returning to the backbenches, Duncan Smith founded the Centre for Social Justice, a centre-right think-tank independent of the Conservative Party, and became chair of its Social Justice Policy Group. In May 2010, new Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him to serve in the cabinet as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. During his tenure he had responsibility for seeing through changes to the welfare state. He resigned from the cabinet in March 2016 in opposition to Chancellor George Osborne's proposed cuts to disability benefits, and returned to the backbenches, where he remains.

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