IAIN Duncan Smith has defended the Tory's election manifesto - claiming the document sets out a clear agenda for changing the way people live their lives.

Speaking during an interview on the BBC's Daily Politics show, the Woodford Green MP responded to a suggestion that the plan was vague on content by referring to Mrs Thatcher's radical 1979 manifesto which he said was also 'slim' but contained one of the party's most groundbreaking policies on council house sales.

The former Tory leader, and head of the influential think tank, the Centre for Social Justice, said: "Everyone has this great folk memory of Mrs Thatcher's 1979 manifesto but actually it was a very slim document and only had about two policies in it really, and one of them was council house sales.

"I think the huge change (in the new manifesto) is to change the way in which people will be able to live their lives without government. In other words the enhancement of the voluntary sector, the whole process of getting people back to work and making people basically take greater control of their lives.

"It's a big change, because there's so much government now.

"It's quite a revolution. I know it doesn't sound like that because there's no actual figure attached to it but honestly there's a big change."