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  courtesy of the independent, a view on our devious vote-catching chancellor.
  
  
  Households and businesses should brace for painful tax rises after the next election to fill a £9bn hole in public finances, a leading economic think-tank warned today.
  
  The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) was also scathing about what it described as the last-minute manipulation of departmental budgets ahead of the Budget in order to save George Osborne the embarrassment of having to report that Britain's annual deficit was rising, rather than falling.
  
  It said its analysis revealed that without new tax rises government spending would have to be cut by 18 per cent by 2018, suggesting that after an election it was much more likely that a future government would attempt to find those savings through new taxes rather than through further swingeing spending cuts.
  
  The Chancellor surprised economists when he announced that public borrowing for 2012-13 would come in £100m below the £121bn deficit recorded in 2011-12.
  
  Most analysts had expected the Office for Budget Responsibility to project a deficit some £5bn to £10bn higher than the previous year, given that the public finances had shown a year-on-year deterioration between last April and January. But an examination of the OBR's document revealed that the Chancellor had achieved this unlikely feat by ordering departments to underspend their budgets in the final two months of the year.
  
  The IFS highlighted the contrast between Mr Osborne's behaviour and his words shortly after taking office in June 2010, when he pledged: "From now on we will have to fix the budget to fit the figures, instead of fixing the figures to fit the budget."
  
  Gemma Tetlow, an IFS researcher, added that the manipulation might have created "real economic costs" by diverting officials from more valuable work in delivering public services.

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