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"I am concerned this Government I want to succeed ... it has become too focused on getting the deficit down."  He added that he chose to step down because he felt "semi-detached, isolated in a sense".  And he claimed he began to lose the ability to make the case for his way of doing things and felt he was losing his influence. "I progressively got more and more depressed that we were running to an arbitrary agenda with a welfare cap in it", he added.  "My concern as I have said ... it's all about how we are perceived and how that balance is right. My deep concern has been that this very limited narrow attack on working age benefits means we simply dont get that balance, we lose the balance of the generations."  "I would not need to do anything on Europe because I have as much freedom as I like ... Europe has nothing to do with this, that is a deliberate attempt to put something out there that discredits me" IDS tells Sky.  "If I was restrained on Europe this might have some logic but it does not ... I recognise this would happen, there would be an attempt to besmirch my ... it's not about Europe."   "I went through a lot of tough decisions last year," IDS adds, mentions tax credits, taper among other things. He says he realised he did not have the power to oppose "raids" on his DWP budget and says Number 10 briefing that the PIP cuts were to pay for tax cuts for middle earners were "wrong". That appears to have been the final straw.