In the last few days, George Osborne has moved to close down three Tory vulnerabilities ahead of the election campaign. First, there was the decision to put another £2 billion into the NHS. Osborne has always believed that support for the NHS is the most important feature of Tory modernisation and this extra money has rather undercut Labour’s commitment to spend another £2.5 billion on the health service. The Tory hope is that this extra money, and the party essentially signing up to Simon Stevens blueprint for the NHS, will prevent health from becoming the major election issue that Labour need it to be.
Second, Osborne has tried to neuter the appeal of the mansion tax. One of the Tories biggest problems is that they are seen as the party of the rich so an election campaign in which they were the party standing athwart a Labour and Lib Dem proposal to tax expensive property more was always going to be tricky for them.
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