In defence of George Osborne’s ‘left-wing’ Living Wage

It was unfashionable of me to write in praise of George Osborne on Budget day. I did so, you may recall, because ‘at least we have a finance minister who’s always on the front foot’: I wanted to make a contrast between our Chancellor’s relentless activism in pursuit of his political goals, and the supine performance of eurozone leaders — who continue failing to offer any strokes at all while hoping for Mario Draghi to knock up a few runs with monetary trick-shots from the other end. Within 48 hours, however, our Chancellor seemed to be very much on the back foot, one hand clutching his protective box, as bouncers rained down from the unlikely combination of IDS and John McDonnell. So it goes in politics; a fortnight later we may observe — emotive issues of disability benefit aside — that the sheer complexity of modern fiscal policy-making leaves an unlovable risk-taker like Osborne open to attack from any angle his many detractors care to choose.

Most popular

David Butterfield

Most-read 2024: Decline and fall – how university education became infantilised

Here, for example, is my friend Allister Heath at the Telegraph writing about ‘the many (inevitably damaging but often popular) left-wing measures [Osborne] has imposed’ — while Labour’s McDonnell bangs on about ‘the bankers’ Chancellor… looking after a wealthy minority’, not least by offering higher-rate taxpayers a big cut in capital gains tax, to the enormous advantage of those lucky few who happen to incur very large CGT bills.