Sometimes Guido wonders what the point of the Tories is nowadays, if they won’t even promise to reduce the tax burden in government, what use are they?

Osborne today will promise the British Chambers of Commerce a tax reduction in “a new pact with Britain’s small businesses” and a “radical package of tax simplification”. This will be done in a “fiscally neutral way”. That means the overall tax burden will remain unchanged. So it is not really a tax cut, more a shifting of taxes about. Did he learn nothing in Dublin?