The key message for Labour from this budget is grim

Within seconds of Osborne sitting down, Labour tweeters, bloggers and columnists were denouncing the sheer evil on display. They will, no doubt, now redouble their efforts to expose the Coalition’s rotten core and persuade everyone else in the Party and movement to do the same.

However, there is another far less comforting reading of yesterday’s statement.

For almost two years, the Labour leadership and its most vocal supporters have been trying to persuade the voters that this Government is of the rich and for the rich, cutting too far and too fast and cares nothing for the squeezed middle.

Osborne’s response to this 24 month onslaught: cut the highest rate of tax, announce even more cuts and squeeze middle earning pensioners.

What odd behaviour: handing out ammunition to your own firing squad.

Maybe he is just politically stupid?  Unlikely.

Maybe he really does only care about helping the rich and spitting on the poor.  Comfy conclusion but sadly it commits the gross error of misunderstanding your enemy (whisper it: Tories do actually believe the things they do are good for the country) while also insulting the intelligence of all the non-rich people who voted Conservative at the last election and still support them now.

So the sad truth probably is that he doesn’t think the firing squad can shoot straight.  This was the Budget of a Chancellor who can read the focus groups and the polls like anyone else. He knows that while the voters have some serious concerns about the Coalition, they are more than willing to set them aside to let the Government get on with clearing up the mess in the public finances and the wider economy especially while there is no serious, trusted alternative on offer.

It’s still possible that he has over-reached but for the time being this is a Chancellor blissfully untroubled by the campaigning strategy of HM Opposition and feeling entirely free to do the things he wants to do.

So to all the bloggers, tweeters and columnists grabbing the pitchforks and marching on No.11, carry on regardless but don’t expect to carry on into government anytime soon without a serious rethink of strategy.

Adam Lent is former Head of Economics at the TUC and co-author of In The Black Labour.  He can be followed on Twitter: @adamjlent