George Osborne received a fulsome banging of desks last night at the 1922 Committee, joking that he should come back again once he’s won a vote if he gets that sort of reception when he’s lost. Tory MPs were doing the desk banging for the benefit of those hacks skulking outside, but they are now holding their breath to see what the Chancellor actually comes up with to mitigate the tax credit cuts in the Autumn Statement. Inside the meeting, the Chancellor was upbeat, but made clear that there will be movement on the issue.
The waiting game means that David Cameron had to refuse to answer the same question six times at PMQs, and anyone else asked about the issue in broadcast interviews will have to deploy the same duck and weave technique.
Many Tory MPs who were worried about the cuts are also sympathetic to the Chancellor’s predicament in having to find £12bn of cuts to the welfare budget from somewhere, and they point out that none of his critics have really come up with a viable alternative.
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