Osborne`s U-turn

Osborne`s U-turn, with his "legal cap on the overall cost of payday loans", should act as a warning to the Labour party.The Tories, as duplicitous as ever, have two different messages in their preparations for the 2015 election, one for the financial and corporate sector, one for the rest of us. For the City, as Cameron`s "gold throne" speech at the Lord Mayor`s banquet explained, the aim is a "leaner and more efficient state" with less interference in the market, and evidence can be seen with the Chancellor`s efforts to prove the EU`s cap on bonuses illegal. This is the Chancellor  who is so in cahoots with the City he has allowed the regulators to appoint a head of their own choice for the inquiry investigating why the regulators saw nothing wrong with the Co-op Bank`s affairs!

     For the rest of us, after years of punishing austerity policies, we are expected to believe the Tories care, and "represent the low-paid"! Osborne can harp on about making sure "hardworking people get a fair deal from the financial system" as much as he likes, but the truth is that the Tories are running scared, knowing that Miliband has "struck a chord" with the electorate by promising to freeze energy prices.More Tory U-turns will undoubtedly follow, and we can expect pledges on the minimum wage and changes to personal allowance levels for income tax, probably as early as the Autumn Statement next month; so determined are they to maintain power, ideology will remain "all over the place", and principles will be ignored.They cannot even afford for unemployment to fall too much just before the election, as an interest rate hike,which would be triggered, would be electorally disastrous. Miliband must use this to his advantage, and ensure he gets his "retaliation in first", making it absolutely clear to the voters whose side he is on, City or people. Obfuscation and prevarication must be avoided, as clearly the Tory election campaign is well under way.