Iain Duncan Smith's warning to David Cameron: don’t make Thatcher’s ‘mistakes’

Sarah Sands
6 May 2010

If David Cameron becomes Prime Minister he faces many of the battles that Margaret Thatcher embraced in 1979

But former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith warns Mr Cameron he should not neglect social justice in his first term, as Mrs Thatcher did.

He said: “In 1979 the priority was the economy. We were so focused on that we didn't get to the social side. Mrs Thatcher did say later we are going into the inner cities' but she didn't get round to it. It is all very well looking at the economy but the key to the economy is people.”

Mr Duncan Smith, who now heads the Centre for Social Justice, urges Mr Cameron to “be bold.” His research into the poverty and social breakdown led to Mr Cameron's mantra of “the broken society” and Mr Duncan Smith has backed the Standard's Dispossessed campaign.

He says that he would certainly consider serving under a David Cameron government “if I could be effective”. He understands the phrase “big society” but prefers his own, “ social justice”.
“People don't want ideology about a big state or a small state. People just want it to work. We should call it an effective state.”

Social justice, to Mr Duncan Smith, is not the same thing as preaching. He commends the recognition of marriage in the tax system because he sees that it helps the conditions of the poorest. He is irritated by the slighting references of Kenneth Clarke, who said money had not influenced his decision to stay married.