Osborne’s on the back foot but his Living Wage deserves praise

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.