Labour yesterday looked bewildered and downcast as it tried to respond to George Osborne’s Budget. The Chancellor’s interview on the Today programme this morning helped to articulate just why the Opposition didn’t enjoy yesterday, and why it is unlikely to enjoy the next few months.
Osborne was at pains when talking about his new ‘living wage’ policy to highlight that the Treasury had based its plans on calculations produced by the Resolution Foundation. He described that think tank very pointedly as ‘centre-left’. Clearly he wanted everyone listening to be aware that this is a right-wing Chancellor introducing a left-wing policy.
He then spoke of a ‘new centre of British politics’. This is what the Tory project is. It is to occupy the centre ground of British politics and to define it in Conservative terms, using the advantage of being in government. This will force Labour to move to the left in order to get heard, or so the Tory theory goes.
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