Budget 2015: How a new haircut made George Osborne aware of the plight of low earners

That huge wage hike the nation’s millions of low earners will be getting? For that we’ve all got Osborne’s barber to thank

2010’s George Osborne (left) has been replaced by a slimmed down, cropped version in 2015, in line with his economic outlook (EPA; Getty Images)

Whether it’s all those extra hours spent at the hairdressers that have suddenly made George Osborne aware of the plight of Britain’s low earners is a question that can only be answered by the Chancellor himself, and his extensive team of stylists.

A highly unscientific study once concluded that it takes more than a year for a radical new hairstyle to become fully normalised for its audience.

Given the Chancellor’s precision puppeteering of the economy to suddenly resolve itself in time for the election, it’s almost certain that it was with this headline-stealing victory Budget in mind that the Osborne rebrand began at the 2013 Tory party conference.

It’s also said that you should dress for the job you want, not the job you’ve got. Which would explain not only the failed struggles of the Tory high command to supplant Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, but also the matching dark-blue suits and French-navy ties sported by both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister at the despatch box.

But then anyone courageous enough to re-christen themselves while still a 13-year-old boy is clearly not going to be afraid of an extreme makeover and, the anecdotal evidence would suggest, it is working.

Would an angular-jawed, French-cropped Gideon Oliver Osborne have been so aggressively booed by the Paralympic crowd? We shall never know but, unthinkable though it might have once been, people now appear to be warming to him and the consequences are profound.

“Life became easier as a George,” is the only comment on the record with regard to Gideon’s new name, which whispers sadly but tantalisingly of a little baronet childhood full of sorrow.

Familiarity breeds contempt and the latter Osborne has cause to understand better than most. It’s no surprise he should be so determined to avoid the former.

When all a life of public service gets you is a deafening chorus of booing set in the middle of what was otherwise a prolonged period of great national joy, it’s understandable that a little ill-feeling towards the public at large may be engendered as a result.

If everyone is suddenly being nice to Osborne after a fastidious diet, a few sharp suits and an expensive haircut, it’s no wonder that he is being nicer back.

So that huge wage hike the nation’s millions of low earners will be getting a mere five years from now? For that, at least, we’ve all got Osborne’s barber to thank.