How George Osborne got the Liberal Democrats to agree to an ‘interesting Budget’

George Osborne and Ed Balls have just done their pre-Budget interviews with Andrew Marr. The show, though, was dominated by talks of post-election deals rather than the contents of the Budget. Ed Balls said that Labour had ‘no need, no plan, no desire’ to do any kind of deal with the SNP. But, as Andrew Marr kept pointing out to him, he wouldn’t rule it out. While when George Osborne was asked about any kind of arrangement with Ukip, he simply took the opportunity to repeat the claim that ‘voting for Nigel Farage makes Ed Miliband the likely Prime Minister’.

It was a pity, though, that more time wasn’t spent on the Budget as I suspect it will be more substantive than expected. One Downing Street source described it to me as ‘interesting’. While the Liberal Democrats concede that Osborne has persuaded them to agree to a bigger Budget than they planned for. As one of them puts it, ‘‘The Tories came to us with things they knew we couldn’t say no to, to get the OK for things they wanted.

The Liberal Democrats, though, became rather concerned about just how much Osborne was going to be announcing on Wednesday. One tells me: ‘It all got a bit out of hand, it is being scaled back.’ This has frustrated the Tories. One Osborne ally describes the Budget process as ‘like wading through treacle’ while another complains: ‘It’s been incredibly difficult. The Liberal Democrats have worked out that it is not necessarily in their interests for him to have a good day.’

One thing Osborne did confirm on Marr was that those who have had to buy an annuity will now be able to trade it in for cash with no tax penalty. Given the poor value annuities so often offer, this is a sensible move. It will also help the Tories in their effort to woo the grey vote. Expect a few more carefully targeted measures on Wednesday, there are—after all—only around 50 days to go to the election.