George Osborne’s broadcast tour this morning served two purposes. The first was to reward those ministers who aren’t playing hard to get in the spending review negotiations by praising their readiness to settle. The second was to prod Labour a bit. Osborne’s love of ‘weaponising’ policy can irritate his colleagues at times, but the spending review is a welcome opportunity for the Chancellor to focus voters’ minds on whether they really want to trust Labour with the economy again in 2015. He told BBC News:
‘The British people will decide who’s the government in 2015 but the financial year starts before the general election, so we have to set out spending plans like any organisation.
‘You have to give departments a budget for the rest of the year. It begs a very interesting question for those who would like to do the kind of jobs that we’re doing, the Labour party, to tell us if they would match these plans.
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