The true meaning of Osborne’s Budget

To understand the budget properly, read James Forsyth’s cover story in The Spectator today. Sure, it was about reducing the deficit – but within it lie several political strategies which explain how George Osborne hopes to win a majority Conservative government. James says that those around Cameron will not entertain this notion – they “have been persuading themselves that coalition government is the best possible result”. But Osborne, he says, finds it deeply unsatisfactory and has a twin mission: fix the economy, and win outright next time.

“He has been observing recently that Gordon Brown spent 13 years successfully creating Labour voters — mainly through state dependency — and that the Tories need to reverse this process if they are to win. It would also mean fostering a new set of Tory voters in the way that Margaret Thatcher did with council house sales and the ‘Tell Sid’ expansion of share ownership.