Does George Osborne really want to make himself the scourge of the strivers?

Without George Osborne, we’d probably be living under Prime Minister Ed Miliband right now. His value to the government goes far beyond his brief as Chancellor; he is across most departments most of the time. But as Chancellor, he is judged by the success (or otherwise) of his Budgets – which is why he is now in a moment of great danger. His love of complexity has come to threaten not just his own reputation, but that of the Conservative Party too. Sometimes, Osborne is so clever that he can be downright stupid: This is one of these times.

In my Telegraph column today, I say that Osborne is currently planning to soften – but not abandon – his tax credit cuts programme. So (for example) he’d set up a £1bn pot to help the worst-affected, but still tear £3.5bn from other claimants. This is an error. Tories should never be in the business of taking money away from low-paid workers who are doing everything the government asks of them.