I was watching BBC Breakfast this morning when the Chancellor did something politicians never do. Osborne was asked a question by Shan Lloyd about universal benefits and he answered it by announcing a new policy that is within his speech (scrapping child benefit for higher rate tax payers). This is not the normal way of doing things in politics. Normally you don't answer the question and you certainly don't announce a policy before giving a speech to party conference and not without leaking bits of your speech to the press first. I found this quite refreshing.
Anyway others will cover the rights and wrongs of this announcement in detail as this is a big story because it moves the Tories to the left. However I was wondering about how Ed Miliband and Labour will deal with this announcement. Ed has a chance to move right or left of this debate and maybe remove his Red Ed tag. He could agree with this cut, thereby showing that he is progressive and also doesn't agree with universal benefits or he could disagree with all or part of this announcement. If Labour do this then are they not moving to the right of the coalition on this issue and thereby removing his Red Ed tag?
I look forward to the Daily Mail's headline tomorrow on middle class benefits being cut.
"We need to make savings, so we're going to cut child benefit for those earning over £44k and so those families don't suffer, we're going to reduce income tax for married couples with children. We're all this together."
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