Iain Duncan Smith: how Margaret Thatcher inspired my welfare reforms Even Lady Thatcher's government did not attempt the root-and-branch welfare reform that Mr Duncan Smith is introducing. He is, in many people's eyes, the ideal man for the job: a former Conservative leader who was effectively ditched by his own party in 2003 without even fighting a general election, but who found political redemption through a drive to fight poverty and reform the welfare system which began when he toured the Easterhouse estate in Glasgow more than a decade ago. It is virtually impossible to imagine him doing any other government job than his current post. "I don't have any particular ambitions...I see [politics] as a vocation, not a career," he says. His work on welfare reform is clearly underpinned by a sense of morality which must surely derive from his religious beliefs (he is sometimes cited as the Cabinet's most senior Roman Catholic). "I am not very good about talking about religion," he says, "because I take a peculiar British view of this which is that I keep it very personal to myself all the time." However, he does admit religion plays a key role. I feel strongly that there is some guiding purpose in our lives...What I believe you need to do is leave behind you something than the thing you found, insofar as people matter, and try to help them change their lives so they get a greater chance and a greater opportunity. You need to try and help people be stronger so they can navigate life. However, judgment is needed too. At the end of the day you also have to define who are the genuinely weak, and who are the ones who that with a bit of help and support can be strong. That's really what these reforms are all about. The job is, of course, no bed of roses, with Mr Duncan Smith under daily attack from campaign groups accusing him of being a mad axeman determined to rip the last means of support away from the weak and the sick. Labour, whose MPs as Mr Duncan Smith notes have opposed all his welfare changes, are adept at finding finding emotive case studies of families grievously affected by the shake-up. Earlier this year 43 Anglican bishops wrote to him to protest about the "deeply disproportionate" effect on children of his benefit changes. Mr Duncan Smith attempts to turn the tables on them, coming close to accusing the bishops of a lack of Christian charity. I can only say to the bishops, it's very easy to complain, it's very easy to point the finger and to tell everybody that you are doing it wrong. We are actually trying to improve people's lives and give those children, who are too often written off in households without work, a chance. You know one in five households when I came here had no work, one in five! That's around three million children. This is a tragedy on a human scale, because in the meantime what are we doing? We're bringing in people from overseas to do the jobs that many in those families could be doing. Where is the kindness in that? I will never criticise bishops for their opinion...But I will simply say this has to change and it's not easy to change it....Honestly there was no kindness in the system that wrote off families for generations without work, without hope and without aspiration. Nor does Mr Duncan Smith, who has a tendency to irascibility, pull any punches when it comes to the other traditional bete-noire of right-of-centre governments, the BBC. He has been in almost continuous dispute withe the corporation over its reporting and analysis of welfare reforms, including its use of Labour's preferred "bedroom tax" for ministers" moves to remove what they call the "spare room subsidy," and its description of changes as "cuts" rather than "savings." "We've had a lot of moments with the BBC," the Work and Pensions Secretary admits, accusing the corporation of "misrepresenting" the coalition's reforms. "They have always tended to to look at the welfare reforms from the jar that is marked, and it's a very leftist jar, "less money bad, more money good." Does he detect politically motivated reporting? I think a lot of times it's more lazy than politically motivated. Anyway, sometimes they get it right and there are some good guys at the BBC. I'm not blanket challenging them all. I'm simply saying when they've got it wrong it's not been very helpful. Tomorrow (MON) sees the launch of pilot projects (the DWP prefers calling them "pathways") of Universal Credit, the single welfare payment that will, in time, wrap up all the main working-age benefits. It is the flagship change, which has seen Mr Duncan Smith come under fire for a imposing a gradualist approach, amid predictions it will be a major failure because of IT problems. He is unapologetic about moving slowly, claiming that Labour's big-bang approach to introducing its own major welfare change, tax credits, made the system a "disaster" which had to be relaunched several times and which was crippled by fraud and error. The "big cultural change" by contrast under Universal Credit is that people have to sign a "claim of commitment" under which they will pledge to make themselves available for work, search for a job, take interviews, take the first job that becomes available and "work hard." If they fail to do this, they can lose their benefits for up to three years on a sliding scale. Mr Duncan Smith says: "People will know from day one, for the first time ever, what's expected of them. They'll have a sheet of paper which is their contract.... We want to say to people, you're claiming unemployment benefit but you're actually in work paid for by the state: you're in work to find work. As Universal Credit rolls out, other work goes on, of course. Mr Duncan Smith is charged with finding an extra £6.5billion of savings from his department's budget for the year 2015-16, most of which will be after the next general election. Cabinet colleagues, themselves under pressure to make substantial savings, have publicly claimed welfare should be pruned even more to spare cuts to the military, the police or the justice system. "Instead of always talking about it, it would be nice if occasionally they'd talk about what we've actually achieved," Mr Duncan Smith says, in a grumble at militant ministers whose numbers include Theresa May, the Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary and Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary. One battle which it appears Mr Duncan Smith might have lost is his fight to end the "universal benefits" regime which sees a range of payments - such help a winter fuel allowance and free bus passes and TV licences - made to all pensioners, no matter how well off they are. In the past he has described this as an "anomaly" and a "matter for debate" and has suggested they could be up for review when the Conservatives write their manifesto for the 2015 general election. Now, however, he says he has "no indication of change," suggesting David Cameron is highly unlikely to go into an election campaign carrying a major potential vote loser among pensioners, the age group most likely to turn up at the polling group. Mr Duncan Smith has an answer, though, when asked if it is fair that such benefits should go to pensioners who are more than able to meet the costs of such items themselves: they should pay the money back voluntarily. It is up to them if they don't want it to hand it back. I would encourage everybody who reads the Telegraph and doesn't need it, to hand it back. One is tempted to wish the Work and Pensions Secretary good luck with that one. However, his challenge shows, once again, he is not afraid to offer bold solutions to pressing political problems.