George Osborne returned from his summer holidays this week to find a cacophony of advice for him on how to boost the economy, as well as advice that his boss David Cameron should sack him as Chancellor in his planned reshuffle. He quickly torpedoed one piece of wisdom generously offered by Nick Clegg, saying the Lib Dem leader’s plans for a wealth tax could ‘drive away the wealth creators and the businesses that are going to lead our economic recovery’. Anyone eagerly expecting Osborne to lose his job in the next few weeks will be disappointed, but the Chancellor will continue to come under pressure, and not just from those riding the Ed Balls bandwagon.
One of Balls’ entourage, Chris Leslie, attempted his own demolition job on Clegg yesterday, adding that the Deputy Prime Minister had ‘supported a failing economic plan which has pushed Britain into a double-dip recession and is leading to borrowing going up by a quarter so far this year’.
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