Budget leaks were once the cause of scandals, inquiries and resignations. But the contents of George Osborne’s red box were spilled across the papers last Sunday. By yesterday the entire package was old news. Yet Osborne remains addicted to the last-minute surprise.
What would it be?
Gym membership for Angus Robertson? Free counselling for ousted LibDems? Britain to join the drachma?
The living wage – Osborne’s grand revelation – is his attempt to redraw British politics. It aligns the Tories with the working-class against Labour.
The opposition wanted a minimum wage of £8 by 2020. Osborne ups that to £9. There are sweeteners for the squeezed middle too. The threshold for the higher tax-band will rise. And Osborne announced a crusade on serial sproggers who bang out a nipper a year without fail.
Quite an alarming development for couples whose sprawling families weave along the pavement like a seven-a-side training session. Subsidies are to be curtailed. The first two fledglings will receive state support, but larger nests will require the parents to find more cash. The good news is that the restrictions are delayed until 2017. No need to leap into the cold shower yet.
The all-Tory Treasury wants to curb tax credits which are the nearest thing to ‘eternal motion’ any of us are likely to see. Gordon Brown laboured tirelessly to embed this complex scurry-wheel in the mechanisms of government. It’s still there now. Everyone knows it.
The taxman extracts coins from our back pocket, juggles them over a drain, and restores what he hasn’t lost to our front pocket. Nine in ten of us receive ‘tax credit’ letters explaining how superb the government is at converting our cash into trash. Osborne will cut that nine to just five.
And he’s concerned about those suffering from tax allergies. Three quarters of a billion quid will be spent hiring an elite squad of Treasury hit-men to chase oligarchs up darkened alleyways and force them to pay their dues.
He’s hiring in schools as well. Osborne wants to swell the number of cadet units in state secondaries to 500. The main priority will be ‘deprived areas.’ That’s code, of course. What he means is a pre-emptive recruitment drive to lure sulky young loners to the Queen’s colours before they can defect to Syria.
Iain Duncan Smith, watching from the bar of the house, seemed physically to swell as the speech progressed. With his face plump and gleaming, and his legs planted firmly apart, he stood there like a country butcher observing a queue forming at his shop door on market day. He grinned and nodded at every new announcement. And when the living wage was unveiled he thrust two clenched fists skywards and yelled ‘Fantastic!’
Osborne couldn’t resist a swipe at his only credible rival for Cameron’s crown. Boris, freshly installed in Uxbridge, has discovered an elderly RAF fighter command station that could do with a facelift. Osborne will happily fund the rejuvenation. ‘And I thank the honourable member for bringing to my attention the dilapidated state of his campaign bunker.’
Harriet Harman, in her response, accused Osborne of shamelessly budgeteering in order to help him ‘move next door’. Osborne tilted his bloodless face at her. And a snicker played across his lips. ‘So what?’
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