by Jon Ashworth
Was it the smartest move from Tory spinners to put George Osborne up as the face of the Tory fightback this weekend? The chancellor has had a shocker since his budget and his performance on Marr coupled with his Mail on Sunday piece won’t be enough to rescue his plummeting reputation.
By the time this hitherto presumptive heir to Cameron arrived at the BBC studios on Sunday, opinion polling had been published which showed just 10 per cent would consider him well suited to be prime minister against 73 per cent who said not.
What a turnaround for Osborne. Before the budget he was lauded by commentators and Tory MPs alike. Tories would approach me in the tearoom and proudly out themselves as really being in George’s not Dave’s gang. Political magazines would produce photo montages of him looking brooding and serious in the No 10 political meetings he apparently spends too much of his time in.
Now his budget is ridiculed by Tory MPs as the bodge-it and is generally seen as the beginning of the great omnishambles of jerry can fiascos and £40,000 give-aways for millionaires.
All while ordinary people were clobbered by further squeezes on their living standards. It was extraordinary in the Commons’ budget debates recently on the various VAT rises on caravans, pasties and church renovations that Tory MP after Tory MP stood up to criticise the chancellor’s proposals with no one coming to his rescue.
Following the local elections losses more Tory MPs broke out of the traps to criticise Osborne’s budget with one usually loyal Tory MP saying “my own view is that, for example in the budget, that there was no desire here for the 50p tax change.”
