George Osborne’s race to persuade voters and colleagues to back his plan

George Osborne has managed, so far, to manage the run-up to the Autumn Statement far better than he did the Budget. There have been no cat fights across the pages of the newspapers, and the briefing over the past few days has been disciplined. After being told about the £5bn of Whitehall spending cuts to fund ‘shovel-ready’ projects including new schools and investment in skills, science and transport yesterday, one hack jokingly asked whether ‘this means that tomorrow’s statement is going to be horrendous’ given the news so far had been relatively positive.

Osborne’s stock is up in Westminster at the moment – something James detailed in the magazine last week – but today isn’t going to be easy by any means, even if he has postponed a feeding frenzy on the granny tax-style details that the extensive leaking of the Budget caused. He will tell MPs that there is no ‘miracle cure’, and will have to make a number of admissions that are pretty unpleasant.