Osborne’s speech

This was new, serious George. In a soberly-delivered speech, Osborne went a long way to reassuring voters that he is ready to be Chancellor. He stressed financial and fiscal responsibility and deftly threaded the political needle on criticising the excesses of the City without committing to more regulation. Osborne was so keen to demonstrate his seriousness that he kept his trademark smirk under wraps. He even bit his lip during one bout of applause in a seeming attempt to stop it from breaking through.

The headline from the speech is a freeze on council tax for two years. This will be achieved by returning government advertising and consultancy budgets to 1997 levels. To qualify for this funding, councils will have to keep their proposed council tax increases to 2.5 percent or less. Considering how unpopular council tax is one would expect the Tories to get significant political mileage out of this announcement,.