Here is what the then Shadow Chancellor told the Tory party conference autumn 2007; George Osborne’s views on inheritance tax in his own words:

“Thanks to Gordon Brown, this unfair tax falls increasingly on the aspirations of ordinary people. These are people who have worked all their lives. People who have saved money all their lives. People who have already paid taxes once on their income. People whose only crime in the eyes of the taxman is that instead of spending their savings on themselves, they want to pass something on to their families. People who feel the most basic human instinct of all: they aspire to a better life for their children and their grandchildren.”

For the Tories of 2007 “the most basic human instinct of all” was providing for one’s children, reflected in a pledge to increase the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million. Their poll rating leapt up seven points on the announcement. Today, rather than cut spending to pay for social care reform, the government has announced that the inheritance tax limit will be frozen at £325,000 until at least 2019. A death tax on middle-class property-owners that will cost traditional Tory voters tens of thousands of pounds when they die. What a R.I.P Off…