I’d love to be in No10 right now. Gordon Brown will simply hate George Osborne’s council tax freeze plan – it will look, smell and sound too much like one of his own scams, and he’ll be hurling staplers and barking orders at his men to shoot down this balloon before it takes off. Yet it’s real enough. Just as last year, Osborne has identified a hugely unpopular tax (council tax), decided to freeze rather than cut it in keeping with the spirit. And he’ll pay for this by cutting something even less popular (consultants and Big Brother government advertising). And to top it off, only make the offer to councils who play ball with a Tory government in Whitehall and keep their own tax increases to 2.5%.
I bumped into Osborne just after (smiling enough to compensate for all his sternness on stage – he knows he’s nailed it) and asked him if he thinks councils will pump up the tax in April 09 and April 10 giving them a high base to cut from. He doesn’t. He showed me this flyer they’ve done up, with the words “council tax freeze” in capitals. Just as last year, he’s found a powerful tax campaigning issue for less than £3bn – a rounding error in government.
As for rest of his speech, I was (as usual) irritated by him solemnly pledging standing up to those who want “unfunded tax cuts”. He may as well promise to defy pressure from slave traders and flat-earthers. Those who want tax cuts want them paid for by the elimination of wasteful government spending. But the proof’s in the pudding: as last year he speech was made by firing a missile in the middle of it, and that missile acknowledged the sheer appetite of people wanting tax relief. An appetite Osborne is sating.
At times his delivery was almost comically slow, but he did well keeping his stern face even after he announced his tax cuts. Any snappers wanting a pic of him grinning would have been disappointed, though if they were quick they’d have got him biting his lip a few times which I suspect was intended to stifle any inclination to smile.
And him using “no time for a novice” at Gordon Brown was, I thought, inspired. It sums up the sheer audaciousness of Osborne, reminding us why this youngish man, who looks even younger, has been the most successful Tory Shadow Chancellor in at least a generation. His postscript to Brown could be “PS – plenty more where that came from”. I sincerely hope so.
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