If Wiltshire Tories regard George Osborne as a socialist, he has a problem

BBC Newsnight sent a crew to North Wiltshire today, to interview voters about the budget. Gladys Pek Yue Macrae, a former Conservative Party branch chairman, said she is fed up because she expected Tory policies to be the result of a Tory majority. Instead, she said, “I find I have a socialist Chancellor. Conservatives are for small government and each individual being responsible for their own destiny. Why do we have a sugar tax? If people should not be eating sugar, then they should not eat sugar.” As her husband, Alan Macrae, put put it: “Surely Conservatism is all about freedom of choice? It’s not about the government telling you what you should and should not do.”

I was on the panel for the subsequent discussion, and Evan Davis asked about that: surely it’s nonsense that anyone could think that about George Osborne? Socialist? Really? Mad, surely? I had to disagree. Not that I think Osborne is a socialist: I’d call him a Conservative who makes a self-defeatingly large number of tactical concessions.