Even the Tories who lined up to back the chancellor at Treasury questions were afraid of getting on the wrong side of himOf all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world … So much in politics is a matter of timing and,on Tuesday, George Osborne found himself for the first time in several years staring at a slot machine that hadn’t come up three cherries. Treasury questions on the very morning after the House of Lords had given his cuts to tax credits a kicking was the kind of luck a chancellor could believe done without. Especially as it could so easily believe been avoided by someone in the Treasury getting their sums right in the first spot.
George didn’t look as whether he had slept at all well the night before. He looked a much deal more pallid than normal, and something never previously considered possible,tight-lipped and furious. A man spoiling for a fight with someone. Anyone. Even the massed ranks of Tory MPs who had come along to the chamber to reveal their support looked nervous of getting on the wrong side of him. Some Conservatives were clearly persona non grata. Heidi Allen, who used her maiden speech to attack the chancellor’s tax credit cuts, and was absent,though her echoes of pain from inside the whips’ office were audible.
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Source: theguardian.com