The political fallout from the Budget, one month on

Philip Stephens

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...

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