Osborne’s class spite wrapped in spin will feed a backlash | Seumas Milne

The budget is a cynical one-nation fraud. The reality is a huge transfer of resources from poor to rich

It’s a long-established Tory tradition to play their most outrageous cards as soon as possible after winning an election: impose the most savage cuts and stuff the pockets of their friends without restraint. Margaret Thatcher could barely contain herself in 1979, abolishing exchange controls and cutting the top rate of tax for the wealthiest from 83% to 60% a month after coming to power. Her chancellor, Nigel Lawson, hacked it back again to 40% in his first post-election budget in 1988, fuelling boom and bust in the process. And George Osborne unveiled his calamitous programme of cuts, tax breaks for the rich and tax rises for the poor the month after the 2010 election.

That halted economic recovery and eventually had him booed out of the Olympic stadium. It was only by calling a temporary halt to austerity and pumping up the housing market that he was able to rescue his reputation and lay the ground for the upturn that saved his and David Cameron’s bacon last month.

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