George Osborne chokes on pasty question

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2012/mar/27/george-osborne-chokes-pasty-question

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Before they all skipped off for Easter MPs on the Treasury select committee got George Osborne's budget in their sights for two precious hours. Not since Margaret Thatcher promised to replace discord with harmony has such a golden opportunity been frittered away. But it was a great product placement moment for Greggs pasties.

This sort of advertising could help select committees turn a welcome profit, but the chancellor's VAT raid on takeaway hot pies was not on the agenda. This is a high-minded committee which likes the big economic picture complete with graphs and theories, not pies. Its bloody-minded chairman, Tory egghead Andrew Tyrie, treats Osborne as if he's at a job interview.

But TV viewers who tuned in expecting Labour MPs to batter Treasury disdain for Keynesian stimulus waited in vain. Those hoping swivel-eyed Tory supply-siders would lambast the chancellor for failing to flatten the economy (the tooth fairy told them it would grow back faster) were left kicking the cat.

No one mentioned the disappearing 50p tax rate for a full 70 minutes and the accursed granny tax finally made a brief appearance only 10 minutes later. Instead they wasted half an hour over budget leaks – everything leaked except that raid on granny's age-related allowance, which is why it caused such a stir.

Tyrie was clearly outraged by an "exceptionally leaky" performance. As soon as Osborne had insisted "no Treasury civil servant, minister or special adviser" had leaked specific tax rates or allowances, he produced cuttings from the (Glasgow) Herald and Guardian which suggested otherwise. Ah, but they weren't proper budget secrets, explained the chancellor. He had authorised briefings.

Or, as an earlier chancellor, Jim Callaghan, once put it: "You leak, I brief", which is why leak inquiries are usually futile. Osborne wisely avoided all invitations to blame the obvious culprits, his Lib Dem coalition partners. Officials at his side declared themselves baffled too. Hercule Poirot they are not.

The MPs eventually got round to sensible questions about tax choices, to all of which Osborne answered that it is pretty difficult and they didn't have any better ideas, which they didn't. But not before John Mann had run amok. Labour's man in Bassetlaw represents the remnants of Sherwood Forest and therefore sees himself as Robin Hood, taxing the rich to give to the poor. Osborne does the opposite, not so much Robin Hood as Nibor Dooh.

In a series of rapid-fire questions Robin challenged Nibor about the price of petrol, the collapse of pension incomes and – out of the blue: "When was the last time you ever bought a pasty from Greggs?"

"Er, um, I cannot remember the last time I bought a pasty from Greggs," the well-scrubbed chancellor stuttered, paling at the very thought of the delicacy.

"Well, that sums it up," said Robin. He proceeded to lecture chancellor Dooh on why his budget hot pie tax will make a lukewarm Gregg pasty VAT-liable in cold weather, but not on warmer days, thanks to varying ambient temperature.

"We'll all have to consult the Met Office," he said, brightening at the thought of fresh complexity.