Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Illustration of basic principles

Could this be the beginning of an FRQ? About collective responsibility? about noblesse oblige? about fiscal policy? about Brexit?

Prominent Tory Quits British Cabinet Over Welfare Cuts

A former leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, Iain Duncan Smith, resigned from the cabinet on Friday over proposed cuts to welfare payments…

Mr. Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said in a statement that he was quitting over planned changes in benefits for disabled people that were announced… by the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.

Mr. Duncan Smith’s departure underscores the deep tensions within the government before a referendum scheduled for June 23 on whether Britain should leave the European Union…

Mr. Duncan Smith is one of several cabinet ministers who want the country to quit the union.

“I have for some time and rather reluctantly come to believe that the latest changes to benefits to the disabled… are a compromise too far,” Mr. Duncan Smith said in a resignation letter.

He added that while such reductions were “defensible in narrow terms, given the continuing deficit, they are not defensible in the way they were placed within a budget that benefits higher-earning taxpayers.” …

Though the government insisted that overall spending on disability benefits would grow, the changes outlined Wednesday suggested an eventual savings of more than 4 billion pounds… At the same time, Mr. Osborne outlined plans to reduce corporate taxes and the capital gains tax…

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