IN one corner we have the Chancellor, desperate to chisel away at Secretary of State for Work and Pensions’ Iain Duncan Smith’s universal credit budget.

In the other corner Mr Duncan Smith is furious that the budget for his pet project is to be raided to cushion George Osborne’s forthcoming Autumn spending review.

It’s the old good cop, bad cop routine. But Iain Duncan Smith is no good cop; he’s more like a Keystone cop.

This benefit-basher extraordinaire has never shown himself to be fond of people on low incomes, so why start now?

His sum total for compassion is removing people’s benefits and telling them they’ll feel better for it.

The universal credit, already years in the making and proceeding at the speed of an asthmatic snail, does not help people on low incomes.

In fact, it makes it virtually impossible to claim all the main benefits through a trapdoor they call the claimant commitment.

The universal credit is still one big puzzle. But Iain Duncan Smith, the patron saint of dishing out thin gruel, is determined to crack it.

Good luck on that one, Iain.

It’s a system that no-one understands, no computer can deal with, and, in its most complete form, not a single person is claiming it.

Stephen Dixon, Redcar