George Osborne hits back on cost of living and trashes Plan B

One of the Tories’ real failings over the past few years has been to ignore the spores of a problem, and then wait until it has mushroomed into something they can’t handle. Take the bedroom tax, food banks, or zero hours contracts: all of which Labour has managed to brand as a sign of the evil coalition’s failure, complete with scary names, partly because ministers never bothered to frame these issues themselves. So this morning George Osborne attempted to trip up Labour in its latest charge against the Tories: the cost of living. And he got in before his opponents have made it up to full speed.

It would have been tempting for the Chancellor to give a triumphant speech in which he teased and ridiculed his opponents now that things are going his way. But his delivery was measured as he carefully attacked Ed Balls, partly because this is hardly a stunning recovery.