Osborne proves to be a lucky chancellor blessed with a less lucky opposition

Office for Budget Responsibility threw aside previous caution giving Osborne decent hand to play in autumn statement

Many politicians know luck and chance can be the covert kingmaker in their trade, and as pure a political figure as the chancellor, George Osborne, will know quite how fortunate he has been today with his four-year spending review.

The review, setting the frame for the whole of the second-term government, still contains the predicted pain, massive cuts in local government and job losses, but nothing on the scale Whitehall feared.

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