Osborne’s mission: erase every trace of Brown

To understand George Osborne, it is important to realise that he cut his political teeth at the height of the New Labour ascendancy. He remembers the humiliations that were visited on his party as Tony Blair carried all before him. But there is one moment from that period that Tories can look back on with satisfaction: their opposition to Britain joining the European single currency. In 1998, William Hague warned, in a speech drafted by Osborne, that the euro would become a ‘burning building with no exits’.

When this speech was written, Osborne couldn’t have imagined that those flames would be the backdrop to the first Budget of his second term as Chancellor 17 years later. But events in Greece have overshadowed this, the first Tory Budget for 18 years. For despite the fact that the measures Osborne announced were undoubtedly significant, including a national living wage, they do not compare with the dramatically increasing chances of Greece leaving the eurozone.