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  1. Home
  2. On This Day
  3. April
  4. 9
  5. Iain Duncan Smith

Births on April 9

Iain Duncan Smith
1954Apr, 9

Iain Duncan Smith

Iain Duncan Smith, British soldier and politician, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as 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 Edinburgh and raised in Solihull. After education at the training school HMS Conway and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he served in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981, seeing tours in Northern Ireland and 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.

Following the resignation of William Hague, Duncan Smith won the 2001 Conservative Party leadership election, 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, passed a vote of no confidence in his leadership; he immediately resigned and was succeeded by Michael Howard. Returning to the backbenches, Duncan Smith became a published novelist. He then 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 was responsible 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.

References

  • Iain Duncan Smith
  • Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Choose Another Date

Events on 1954

  • 13Feb

    NCAA Division I

    Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game.
  • 28Feb

    NTSC

    The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.
  • 1Apr

    United States Air Force Academy

    United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
  • 25Apr

    Bell Labs

    The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories.
  • 18Jun

    1954 Guatemalan coup d'état

    Carlos Castillo Armas leads an invasion force across the Guatemalan border, setting in motion the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état

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