U-turns and new turns

IF THE spending plans for Britain over the next five years, set out by George Osborne this week, were an animal, they would be a pushmi-pullyu. With one half, the chancellor was utterly opportunist—reversing tax-credit cuts which had caused uproar for hitting the working poor, and shying away from a politically awkward trimming of the budget of the police soon after terrorist attacks in France. With the other, he was a determined reformer, continuing work on the most ambitious redesign of government since Margaret Thatcher. Inevitably, the U-turns captured the headlines. But it is the remaking of the state that matters more.