George Osborne has been behaving rather oddly of late. Normally, he’s known as the ‘submarine’ for surfacing only twice a year. Now, it’s twice a week. On Tuesday he delivered a speech to supermarket staff, talking tough on welfare and sometimes lapsing into a Dick Van Dyke mockney accent. On Thursday he used the Philpott case to raise questions about the welfare system. Yesterday, David Cameron backed him. It looks like a concerted effort to speak on the wavelength of target voters – but will it work? In this week’s Spectator, Matthew Parris suggests it may not. He has spoken at length to many of the 40 MPs who hold the most marginal seats. He notices that the calls for radicalism tend to come from those with massive majorities, where those on the frontline are more cautious. Here’s what he has to say:
‘An image of the party as concerned about the poor was important to them, and there was some irritation with MPs in more prosperous seats who can sound careless about welfare.
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