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 Glasgow 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.
Early life, military service and professional career
Duncan Smith was born George Ian Duncan Smith on 9 April 1954 in the area of Kelvindale, Glasgow. A second "i" was added to his middle name "Ian" later in life, with several explanations given: Duncan Smith changed it himself to prove that he was committed to Scotland; the person who filled in his birth certificate made a mistake; Duncan Smith's mother registered him, but Duncan Smith's patriotic father later suggested to his son to change it to the Scottish spelling, even though both "Ian" and "Iain" are Scottish names - the equivalent of the English "John".
He is the son of Wilfrid George Gerald "W. G. G." Duncan Smith, a decorated Royal Air Force flying ace of the Second World War, and Pamela Summers, a ballerina. His parents married in 1946.
One of his maternal great-grandmothers was Ellen Oshey Matsumuro, a Japanese woman, from a Samurai family, living in Beijing who married Pamela's maternal grandfather, Irish merchant seaman Captain Samuel Lewis Shaw. Through Ellen and Samuel, Duncan Smith is related to Canadian CBC wartime broadcaster Peter Stursberg (whose book No Foreign Bones in China records their story) and his son, former CBC vice-president Richard Stursberg.
Duncan Smith was educated at Bishop Glancey Secondary Modern School, until the age of 14, and then at HMS Conway, a merchant navy training school on the Isle of Anglesey, until he was 18. There, he played rugby union in the position of fly-half alongside Clive Woodward at centre.
In 1973, he spent a year studying at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, Italy, but did not complete his studies and did not gain any qualifications. He then attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Scots Guards as a second lieutenant on 28 June 1975, with the service number 500263. He was promoted to lieutenant in the Scots Guards on 28 June 1977. During his service, he served in Northern Ireland and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where he was aide-de-camp to Major-General Sir John Acland, commander of the Commonwealth Monitoring Force monitoring the ceasefire during elections.
Duncan Smith worked for GEC Marconi in the 1980s and attended short courses at the company's staff college in Dunchurch. He did not gain any qualifications at Dunchurch and completed six separate courses lasting a few days each, adding up to roughly a month in total. Nevertheless, until exposed by the BBC's Newsnight programme, Smith declared on the Conservative Party website and in his Who's Who entry, that he had attended the University of Perugia and the "Dunchurch College of Management".
At the 1987 general election Duncan Smith contested the constituency of Bradford West, where the incumbent Labour Party MP Max Madden retained his seat. At the 1992 general election, Duncan Smith stood in the London constituency of Chingford, a safe Conservative seat, following the retirement of Conservative MP Norman Tebbit. He became a member of the House of Commons with a majority of 14,938. A committed Eurosceptic, he became a constant thorn in the side of Prime Minister John Major's government of 1992 to 1997, opposing Major's pro-European agenda at the time. This was something that would often be raised during his own subsequent leadership when he called for the party to unite behind him.
Duncan Smith remained on the backbenches until 1997, when the new Conservative leader William Hague brought him into the Shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security, the former version of the Department for Work and Pensions which he would later lead. At the 1997 general election, boundary changes saw his constituency renamed Chingford and Woodford Green and his majority of 14,938 was reduced to 5,714. Duncan Smith realised the dangers that he and neighbouring Conservative MPs faced, so redoubled his efforts: "We spent the final week of the campaign working my seat as if it was [were] a marginal. I held on but everywhere around me went." In 1999, Duncan Smith replaced John Maples as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.
Leader of the Conservative Party
William Hague resigned after the Labour Party continued in government with another large parliamentary majority following the 2001 general election. In September 2001, Duncan Smith was the successful candidate in the Conservative leadership election. Although he was initially viewed as an outsider, his campaign was bolstered when Margaret Thatcher publicly gave her support for him. His victory in the contest was helped by the fact that his opponent in the final vote of party members was Kenneth Clarke, whose strong support for the European Union was at odds with the views of much of the party.
In the 2002 local elections, the first of two elections in which Duncan Smith led the party, the Conservatives gained 238 extra seats on local councils, primarily in England. The 2002 Conservative Party conference saw an attempt to turn Duncan Smith's lack of charisma into a positive attribute, with his much-quoted line, "do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man".
Amid speculation that rebel MPs were seeking to undermine him, Duncan Smith called on the party to "Unite or die." On 23 February 2003, The Independent on Sunday newspaper published an article saying that 14 MPs were prepared to sign a petition for a vote of confidence in Duncan Smith (25 signatories were then needed) for a vote on his removal as leader. Duncan Smith's 2003 conference speech favoured an aggressive hard-man approach which received several ovations from party members in the hall. "The quiet man is here to stay, and he's turning up the volume", Duncan Smith said.
In the 2003 local elections, the Conservatives gained 566 seats. Despite the gains made, Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Crispin Blunt resigned. He called Duncan Smith's leadership a "handicap" as he had "failed to make the necessary impact on the electorate", and said that he should be replaced. These worries came to a head in October 2003 when journalist Michael Crick revealed he had compiled embarrassing evidence of dubious salary claims Duncan Smith made on behalf of his wife that were paid out of the public purse from September 2001 to December 2002. The ensuing scandal, known as "Betsygate", weakened his already tenuous position.