Petition We the people challenge Ian Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week for one year.

Mr Duncan Smith, insisted he could live on £53 a week - the amount given to a benefits claimant interviewed on the radio.

"If I had to, I would," he said. "The reality is what we are trying to make certain is that the amount of money that taxpayers pay sees some value at the end of it in terms of people being supported.

"There’s been a huge amount of money which, in the course of the welfare system now, has absolutely been wasted.”

Writing in today's Daily Telegraph, Mr Duncan Smith and George Osborne, the Chancellor, said the Coalition is “restoring the original values of the welfare state”.

He has stated, in the public domain, that he could do it. Let us see him do it.