Dear Mr Duncan Smith – you are a coward

Dear Iain,

As you may know, today there’s a debate in the Commons on the “Bedroom Tax” – or as you (and no-one else) call it, the “spare room subsidy”. It’s one of the more controversial policies that you’ve put in place during your time at the DWP. For any ordinary politician it’d be far and away the most controversial act of their time in government, but you’re making such an epic mess of Universal Credit that it’s hard to nail down just the one.

For someone who once referred to himself, with a straight face – in the third person – as “the quiet man” you haven’t half been busy.

Yet your spot in the Commons today will remain empty as the debate continues. Perhaps the “quiet man” has been taken by a spot of shyness? Perhaps you are so quiet we didn’t even realise you were there. Or perhaps you decided, at the last minute and without letting on until only hours before the debate, that you were going to swann off on the Eurostar to Paris, whilst the Commons scrutinises the real impact of your nasty, spiteful, divisive little policy.

Mr Duncan Smith – you are a coward. You had an opportunity today to face your critics, to hear the stories told by MPs of their constituents who face this brutal attack, to meet with the disabled protesters who came to Westminster to lobby you on this dreadful measure. And instead you hot-footed it to the continent.

For a confirmed Eurosceptic, it was an unusual hiding place.

And that’s before we even get onto why you’re there in the first place. Both France and Germany have sent their President and Chancellor respectively to discuss the incredibly important issue of youth unemployment. And who did the British government send? The “quiet man”. Was Cameron too busy today packing his bags for his Sri Lanka trip? Or was it just for convenient to have you out of the country on a day where you could have been held to account for your actions. Cameron’s disappearing trick is evidently rubbing off on his cabinet.

Those whose homes and lives you have targeted with your insidious attack will never forgive you. But some might at least have respected you, had you turned up today and argued your case. Instead, you sloped off out of the country with not so much of a word of explanation – save for a blog on ConHome that praises the Bedroom Tax but doesn’t even acknowledge that there’s a debate on today.

If anyone else did a bunk from work when they were facing a performance review I dare say I know how you’d respond. So don’t be surprised if people think you’re a hypocrite and a coward. Because I’m afraid that’s exactly what you are.

Mark