IDS made the news today for crying about a teenage single mum. It's a shame he didn't find his empathy earlier

In an interview published last week by journalist Owen Jones, Tory MEP Daniel Hannan described Iain Duncan Smith as one of the most misunderstood men in politics. I'm not so sure

'Your tears aren't fooling anyone, IDS' (Getty)

Ex-Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has made the news for crying. Yes, really.

Smith shed a few tears as he recalled a conversation he’d had with a 19-year-old single mother who had “written off her life,” he said.

Speaking to Private Eye editor Ian Hislop as part of an upcoming BBC series, Mr Duncan Smith said the woman “was a product of a system”.

Ironically enough, that system was created by the very government Iain Duncan Smith himself has been an integral part of. He resigned as the Work and Pensions Secretary last month, saying benefit changes to disabled people were “a compromise too far”. But during his six years in the role, he presided over a barrage of cuts to the welfare budget.

He’s the very man who presided over a series of decisions directly affecting the life chances of the Tory’s favourite victims: low income families, young people, and the disabled.

While we’re desperate for our politicians to act more like humans, political action matters to voters, too. It’s going to take more than a few tears to make us think IDS is capable of empathy. We've seen Chancellor George Osborne cry at Margaret Thatcher's funeral, after all, and most of us still think he's evil.

In an interview published last week by journalist Owen Jones, Tory MEP Daniel Hannan described Smith as one of the most misunderstood men in politics.

Unfortunately, personal accounts and tears won’t change public perception of his cruel and unjustified attacks on those who need support the most, including welfare cuts that have hit disabled people nine times harder than the rest of the population.

This is the man who introduced personal independent payments (PIP) that would have left thousands of disabled people with less support.

He also introduced Universal Credit, which under current plans will see single mothers working full-time and at the national minimum wage have their work allowances fall by £3,000.

He has been a leading figure in a government whose mission has been to “reform” welfare to save money, and whose message has been that this is necessary to eradicate benefit cheats, who are a massive drain to the deficit. In reality, benefit fraud is only six percent the level of tax fraud.

Director of the think tank Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson concluded recently that Universal Credit will be a “much less generous” system.

Duncan Smith has taken part in a concerted effort by the government to demonise the vulnerable, including people in situations much like the woman he spoke to, while they make half-hearted attempts to clamp down on the real economic drain that is tax avoidance.

Osborne’s Budget last month confirmed that unemployed, disabled recipients of the Employment Support Allowance will lose £30 per week.

And as IDS blubbed away over the struggles of a teenage single mother, the government will impose a benefits freeze on tax credits and jobseeker’s allowance, and a two-child limit on universal credit payments.

Let’s not pretend Smith is a friend of the young either, when his department got rid of EMA support for students from low-income backgrounds, and cut housing support for under-25s.

And then there’s the bedroom tax, which has hit low-income families and disabled people the hardest, and left 78 per cent of those affected without money at the end of the month.

So, if he really is the most misunderstood man in politics, then perhaps Iain Duncan Smith can forgive us – because we’ve definitely misunderstood his intentions surrounding the most vulnerable people in society.