George Osborne’s press conference leaves questions unanswered

This is supposed to be the week when people start thinking about the General Election. George Osborne certainly thinks voters are only just switching on as he used his press conference this morning to reiterate a number of claims about Labour’s economic policies that the Tories made last week, including one that the Institute for Fiscal Studies politely described as ‘unhelpful’. The Chancellor launched something called ‘Labour Party Fiscal Plans: An Analysis’, which he presented with the help of a nifty PowerPoint that splashed the words ‘SPENT’ over every funding stream Ed Miliband’s party has come up with so far. It included the claim that Labour would hit working families with £3,028 more in tax (over several years, though that qualification tends to be rather far away from the initial scary-sounding claim), and that Labour would run a £30 billion budget deficit for ever’.

David Gauke, who along with Priti Patel accompanied George Osborne at the press conference, said his ‘challenge for Ed Miliband and Ed Balls is this: stop taking the British people for fools.