The Spectator's Notes | 26 June 2010

People have often said that George Osborne is ‘very political’ and have not meant it as a compliment.

People have often said that George Osborne is ‘very political’ and have not meant it as a compliment. But it is, in principle, a good thing that politicians should be political (see what happens when they’re not). To understand the Cameron/Osborne political success, you need to see how quickly they have changed. A year ago, think-tanks like my own dear Policy Exchange were saying that the deficit should be cut, over the parliament now begun, by £100 billion in real terms. This was considered intolerable in polite society. In the same week, Andrew Lansley, now the Health Secretary, made a ‘gaffe’ in which he said that, with Health ‘ring-fenced’, other departmental budgets would have to be cut by 10 per cent. From that point, the Tories began surreptitiously to move, and on Tuesday Chancellor Osborne promised exactly that previously unthinkable real-terms deficit reduction, and departmental cuts of 25 per cent. He has managed to do this with his party still being attacked from the right for being soft, and with the Liberal Democrats, forced by their longing for power, backing him. He presented it well: it is a great political success. One should add, though, that Labour, being in opposition, is now free to ‘see through’ the Tories’ game, and try to mobilise millions of people to revolt. The assault proposed on the public sector is, quite rightly, massive — much bigger than anything ever done by Margaret Thatcher. It is hard to see why what is coming will not be as fierce a fight as anything known in the 1980s.