Budget was triumph in managing expectations
I will leave it to wiser heads and the passage of time to determine the effectiveness of Tuesday’s Budget. But, from a communications perspective, George Osborne got it right. The message from the Treasury was that the economy had been trashed by Gordon Brown’s feckless socialists and, once again, it was up to the Conservatives to restore stability and sound economics. And, importantly, the electorate bought it. The evidence of Government inefficiency, waste and needless interference can be seen everywhere. So, by the time Osborne rose to speak, everyone was expecting some very unpleasant medicine.
But it actually wasn’t as bad as most people expected. Taxes on booze, tobacco and fuel have been left untouched and the rise in VAT was widely anticipated and would probably have happened if Alistair Darling was still Chancellor. Rather cleverly, the VAT increase does not take effect until January, making it highly likely that retailers will have a bumper Christmas as people bring forward purchases they had planned anyway. The consequence of all this is that the only people moaning particularly loadly at the moment, apart from the Labour Party, are the professional whingers in the public sector trade unions and various charities involved in welfare-related issues. Nobody, apart from the BBC, is paying them much attention at the moment.
By way of evidence that my reading of the public mood is right, I’d like to cite an online poll being run by the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette of readers’ reactions to the Budget. When I looked on Wednesday afternoon, about 60 per cent said they thought it was tough but fair. So full marks to George Osborne and his team for managing public expectations so effectively. I suspect the hard part of the job is just beginning.
