On next Wednesday, Chancellor Osborne will rise and stand at the House of Commons Despatch Box to deliver his next budget speech – but will it lead to his dispatch from the job, you might be thinking? You see, this budget is the last chance for the Conservatives to attract and bribe voters with Treasury ‘give-aways’ and his Party is desperately relying on that of course to propel them well into the voting lead, aren’t they?

If the Conservatives ‘lose’ the General Election in May then George Osborne will be out of the job – and it is highly unlikely that the Tories will ever entrust him with it again. Will he care though? Perhaps not, because not only will he be out of his job, but so will his boss PM David Cameron, and there is no way will the traditionally vindictive Tories allow him to stay as Leader of the Opposition (having lost them two elections on the trot). This means that there will be a gaping vacancy for Conservative Party Leader – and guess what? Osborne though not now a favourite, is well positioned nevertheless to seize the Tory crown, don’t you think? Oh yes, the pundits talk about London Mayor Boris Johnson as the next Leader, but diehard Tories will never allow a ridiculous buffoon, however clever & publicly appealing, to run their Party, let alone contemplate him running the Country, will they? No Mr Osborne’s real adversary will Home Secretary Theresa May, so if he can damage her with his budget, he undoubtedly will, won’t he? Anyway will Tory men ever again choose a woman leader after the experience of iron maiden Margaret Thatcher, do you think?

All that being said, what is our George actually thinking about down deeply, before he comes to his final decision on what to put in his budget?

Well for a start he knows that he is constrained by the LibDems, his co-conspirators. They will not agree to anything that solely boosts Tory votes alone – so there will have to be some kind of ‘quid pro quo’ that allows the LibDems to make some kind of electoral capital out of the budget, won’t there? Giving them such a payback will give him no sleepless nights though, as they represent no threat whatsoever to the Conservatives returning to power for another five years [indeed letting them have a few extra votes as their Party faces oblivion, would be seen as a gallant act of charity (though out of character), wouldn’t it?].

The next priority, while the most important, is to include some things that will scupper any late charge by Labour – if he can announce any action that will splinter a main plank in the planned Labour manifesto, he will be on cloud nine, surely?

He will then be focusing primarily on the so called floating voters, those who might be bribed by a few shekels to shove their voting paper selecting the Tory candidate into the ballot box (self interest works wonders in politics, don’t you know?). Traditional Conservative voters won’t get a look in, as their votes are secure already – they just have to be promised jam tomorrow (in the next parliament of course).

The final, but overriding, thing on his mind will be to protect and retain his personally perceived image & reputation as a hard-nosed, strong-minded, steamrolling, monetary powerhouse (but his modest degree from Oxford University was in Modern History – strange?).

[No mention here in this post then of him thinking about the economic state of the Nation when assembling his budget? No, that is the furthest thing from his mind right now, perhaps?].

A FURTHER POST MAY BE PUBLISHED ABOUT THIS BUDGET IF EVENTS SUGGEST IT – so look again soon]