Like Shakespearean sorrows political troubles arrive not as single spies but in full battalions. There was always going to be a moment when the mood turned against the Coalition. Yet few expected quite such a ferocious response to George Osborne’s Budget. Throw in embarrassing revelations about Tory party funding a fuel panic and the bungled attempt to deport Abu Qatada and these are grim times.
All governments hit a patch when every story becomes a bad story. That has certainly been true of the Budget. The uproar over a mis-described ‘granny tax’ and a row over VAT on Cornish pasties has been followed by a Tory rebellion against a plan to cap relief on charitable giving. The bishops...
