Back to his Tory best

George Osborne has just set the scene for tonight’s Chancellors’ debate by announcing something neither Darling or Cable will be able to match: a tax cut. It’s a real one, it will benefit some 20m workers and (best of all) it will be paid for by spending cuts. While the amount is not huge – everyone on under £43,000 will be £150 better off – it indicates the route the Conservatives would go down in government.  

Trusting people with their own money, and stoking the recovery by cutting the tax on jobs. Here are the main points:

1) Osborne would raise National Insurance threshold in Apr11. One of the many booby traps Brown laid for the country after the next election is a national insurance hike of 1 percent, for both employer and employee. The Tories have long whinged about a tax on jobs but, as Tim Montgomerie predicted, they are now committed to tackling it.