A massively disappointing speech from George Osborne

By Kevin McKeever

At Conservative Party Conference in 2007, George Osborne pulled off a political masterstroke when he wrong footed the then poll-leading Labour PM Gordon Brown. Osborne’s announcement that an incoming Tory government would increase the inheritance tax threshold destroyed the confidence of Gordon Brown’s team and as a result Brown bottled calling a general election. As a staffer in the Labour machine I remember the moment vividly when we were stood down from our election footing. I knew instinctively that Gordon Brown had turned a corner on a road that would now lead to defeat.

Osborne’s conference speech today was therefore massively disappointing, both in terms of political strategy and policy solutions. The ‘big announcement’ was a heavily pre-briefed freeze in council tax – little comfort to Britain’s hardworking families whose living standards are being squeezed far beyond the £70-odd Osborne’s announcement means for the average household. Tory backbenchers are increasingly irritated by Osborne’s “back of the sofa” approach to policy – miraculously finding money here and there when politically expedient in order to avoid admitting that it’s time for a Plan B.

The chancellor declared that “we will overcome every obstacle in our path to jobs and prosperity.” But the stark truth of today’s speech is that Osborne is out of his depth, adrift in a dogmatic sea of his own making. The deficit is in fact larger than this time last year, unemployment is rising and growth has stalled. All sections of society are calling for an alternative, pragmatic approach to deficit reduction and growth.

His own Treasury Select Committee Chair, Andrew Tyrie MP, lashed out at Osborne’s failure to effectively plan for growth. Business leaders are increasingly aghast at the Coalition’s lack of a credible growth strategy. And the Tory right will be even more outraged at Osborne’s failure to agree with the interviewer on this morning’s Today programme that tax cuts lead to growth.

With no new announcements on how he intends to deliver growth, all we see is bluster from a chancellor who is increasingly vapid, vague and vacant in the face of a failing, dogmatic economic strategy. The ‘sunshine’ that Osborne and Cameron have been hoping for in time for the 2015 general election is drifting further and further into the distance.