“You only get cut through when there’s a row,” one Tory observed to me
on Friday as we discussed the anger that had followed George Osborne’s announcement on child benefit. So in one way, the Tories are not unhappy with the fact that this story is still rumbling
on.
It is imprinting on the public mind that the Tories have hit the well-off. This is in advance of a spending review that is bound to hit hardest those people and regions that are most dependent on
the state. Following the media coverage of the child benefit row, it will be much harder for Labour to make the charge that the cuts are socially divisive stick. It really does appear that “we
are all in this together.”
But there are two things that do worry the Tories about the row.
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