By Tim Montgomerie
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The PM may be enjoying some very good headlines in this morning's newspapers but the Mail and the Telegraph don't provide happy reading for the Chancellor. In a week in which George Osborne had attempted to toughen his policy towards the banks the Daily Mail – not the Guardian, Mirror or Morning Star – declared this morning that "the Tories hang the police and Press out to dry while letting the real crooks – their banker chums – off scot free…". Gulp. I wonder, however, if it's The Daily Telegraph's extended leading article that will most worry Mr Osborne.
Here are some tasters from the leader – all direct quotations:
Another gulp.
The Telegraph wants the Chancellor to follow the Allister Heath recipe – bold self-financing tax cuts including the abolition of CGT and Irish-level corporation tax rates. They want, in other words, shock therapy. If the Chancellor refuses to believe that supply-side tax cuts can be self-financing they suggest deeper cuts including an end to the NHS ring-fence. Our own Andrew Lilico has already advocated this.
Alternatively – and more likely to secure his Coalition partners' agreement – Mr Osborne could launch a massive housebuilding programme of the kind advocated this week by Boris Johnson and which helped lift Britain out of the 1930s slump.