Stuck in the middle

Posted by: Tom Lloyd

06/10/2010

Poor George Osborne doesn’t seem to be able to please anyone.

First he was slated for putting forward ‘regressive’ policies in his emergency Budget that would hit the poorest in society hardest.

Now he’s coming under fire for his pledge to scrap child benefit for more affluent members of society.

Mr Osborne always claimed his Budget was progressive, but this was questioned by some fairly comprehensive research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, and always seemed a little doubtful.

According to The Mirror, the chancellor has now admitted his cuts would hit the members of society who can afford them least, in an email to Conservative MPs.

Meanwhile the right-wing press has being laying into him for putting forward the idea of cutting child benefit for households where anyone earns more than £44,000. The Telegraph calls it ‘crass and out of touch’.

It seems Mr Osborne is rather stuck. If he hits the poorer members of society with cuts he is accused of being inhumane (or, in the case of The Independent’s Simon Carr, inhuman), but targeting the more affluent seems to be political suicide.