Greek turmoil crisis George Osborne justification for austerity budget

Holding up the threat of financial meltdown is a gift for chancellor whose budget on Wednesday will contain significant spending cuts

It is almost 20 years since Ken Clarke delivered the last purely Conservative budget in the dog days of John Major's government. A lot has happened since the Cool Britannia year of 1996: the economy has boomed and gone bust; the euro has arrived; an independent Bank of England sets interest rates; and the gap between the super rich and the rest has widened.

All these developments will shape the package of measures George Osborne is to announce on Wednesday. In 1996, Clarke realised his party was going down to defeat. Knowing it was his swansong, he included spending cuts in his last budget, little thinking that Gordon Brown would stick to them. Osborne, by contrast, has the assurance of the victor, of a chancellor who knows that he can plan for a whole parliament and is already thinking about how to win again in 2020.