Osborne must get radical or face defeat

Winning the next election may already be beyond the present government, argues Matthew Lynn. But there's still time for George Osborne to leave a lasting legacy.

What would be the riskiest thing George Osborne, the chancellor, could do in his Budget next week? Chance everything on some tax cuts and risk splitting an already fragile coalition? Borrow some more money to fund infrastructure spending and perhaps see Britain's credit rating taken down another notch?

No. The riskiest thing Osborne could do is put safety first and do very little. The next general election looks already lost. It would be far safer to roll the dice and reform at least one major tax. It might just have a chance of working in time for the coming election and even if it didn't, it would leave a legacy that would be hard for the incoming Labour government to reverse.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.