New Labour said its aim was to help the low-paid by topping up their income with state hand-outs. It is right to prune back Gordon Brown’s labyrinthine system of tax credits, the cost of which has soared to some £30 billion a year. Let me say that in most respects his July Budget was a progressive one. In order to safeguard his own reputation for competence, to protect his party against charges that it is being unjust, and, above all, for the good of the working families which he and David Cameron claim to represent, he must think again about tax credits. I can see why he may be tempted to brazen out the brickbats.īut he would be wrong to do so.
He is justified in thinking he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. I think Mr Osborne is entitled to feel that his critics are being overly harsh. The Chancellor nonetheless has to find a further £20 billion in public sector savings over the next few weeks.Īnd yet some of the same backbenchers and pundits who have lectured him about the necessity to make cuts are upset about the proposed savings of £4.4 billion a year in tax credits, which were announced in the July Budget. To achieve this will not be at all easy since the NHS, foreign aid, defence and the schools budget are off-limits. Now he has committed himself to producing a surplus of £10 billion in 2019-2020. The Chancellor is urged to redouble his efforts to bring down the deficit, and sometimes scolded for not having done so fast enough.
Tory MPs and commentators remind him daily that we still have an annual deficit of £70 billion, and Britain’s gargantuan debt continues to rise. George Osborne has good reason to feel irritated. Harsh critics: Tory MPs remind George Osborne daily that we still have an annual deficit of £70 billion, and Britain’s gargantuan debt continues to rise