Osborne’s interview with the Guardian is mostly getting coverage for his attack on “unacceptable” banking bonuses. But I reckon a passage about the Tories’ commitment to ring-fence the health budget from spending cuts may be more significant:
“Only health and international development have been ring-fenced – though today, when it comes to health spending, [Osborne] says only that ‘we will work hard to protect it’.”
This idea of “working hard” to “protect” the health budget is a good deal more ambiguous than the solid pledge to offer real-terms spending increases that we’ve heard so much over the past couple of days. As I suggested yesterday, it’s also a more sensible position for the Tories to adopt. A Tory government many find that it needs to cut health spending in order to deal with Brown’s debt crisis, and Osborne’s new formulation gives them a little more rhetorical leeway to do that. Who knows? It may even be the first sign that they’re thinking of formally downgrading their health spending pledge.
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