GEORGE OSBORNE has long since made the part of Scrooge his own. Yet as a third Christmas of austerity approaches, the chancellor of the exchequer has pulled off a rare triumph. The bigger-than-expected cut in welfare spending proposed in his Autumn Statement on December 5th was not merely a case of giving his indebted country the tough medicine it needs. Against a backdrop of rising resentment of welfare “scroungers”, it also gave gloomy British taxpayers something they actually want.

According to polling by YouGov, 52% of Britons thought the proposed cut—which will save £4.4 billion ($7.1 billion) a year by 2017-18—was either reasonable or too modest. This represents a striking change in British attitudes to welfare. Though Britons of all political persuasion remain, by and large, deeply attached to the welfare state—hence their near-blanket support for the National Health Service—they are increasingly reluctant to pay for it. In previous recessions, opposition to the social-security budget has tended to fall temporarily as the number of those drawing on it rose. This recession has been different: resentment of the welfare bill has surged. According to a poll last year by NatCen Social Research, only 28% of respondents want to see an increase in welfare spending, compared with 35% in 2008.

The change probably reflects the long duration of this economic downturn, a spate of attacks on benefit cheats by excitable newspapers and the fact that spending on benefits is at an historic high. As a percentage of GDP, it has almost tripled since the 1950s—to around 14% this year. Many Britons think there are too many scroungers taking them for a ride. And this puts Mr Osborne in new territory: he is not used to being liked for saving money. An added boon for the chancellor is that the proposed cut, which he is expected to bring before Parliament in January, puts his Labour opponents in a tricky position.

Going along with Mr Osborne’s proposal on welfare—which would restrict the rate of increase in housing, unemployment and other benefits to a below-inflation rate of 1% a year over three years—would strike many Labour voters as a betrayal of core principles. Yet more than half, according to another recent poll, want to see benefits cut. Labour’s leaders—in particular the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls—are also haunted by a reputation for past profligacy in government. Opposing Mr Osborne would therefore put Mr Balls under acute pressure to say where savings should be made instead. And this would not be easy. The welfare cut envisaged by Mr Osborne is bigger than the annual budget of the Foreign Office. Given that Mr Balls has so far trodden a fine line between grumbling about the chancellor’s shears and keeping quiet on how otherwise the deficit is to be reduced, the issue threatens to embarrass his party on its most neuralgic issue.

For the Tories, it may be equally significant. Under the leadership of David Cameron, the prime minister, the Conservative Party has sought to attract centrist voters by appearing keener than in the past on a range of liberal issues, including climate change and gay rights. Plans by the coalition government it leads to allow gay couples to marry in church are the latest example of this. Yet opinion polls suggest that harping on socially liberal values has done nothing to dissuade voters from the view that the party stands squarely for the interests of the rich. With Britain’s economic troubles likely to continue through next year and beyond, and most of the pain of austerity still ahead, that perception will put the Tories in an increasingly vulnerable position.

Still nasty, then

Their response is to woo hardworking blue-collar folk—in Margaret Thatcher’s day a staunch part of the Tory base, but whose loyalties are now more divided. Mr Osborne’s proposed benefits squeeze may be seen as a first strike in that campaign. In a speech delivered at the Tory party conference in October, the chancellor painted a sympathetic portrait of a fictive blue-collar striver, rising early for work only to see the drawn curtains of his neighbour, “sleeping off a life on benefits”. Nasty as that may sound, it is probably as good a way as any to go about slashing the welfare budget at a time of economic hardship.

Yet it is a risky ploy. Mr Osborne’s latest attack on benefits is already less popular than a previous pledge to restrict the entitlements of any family to £26,000—the median post-tax earnings of a working household. That idea, which is to be implemented next year, has a simple appeal to Britons’ sense of fair play. The same cannot confidently be said of exposing those depending on benefits to the ravages of inflation, this year’s wheeze. And it will no doubt come to seem ever crueller after a flow of hard-luck stories in left-wing newspapers. Worse for Mr Osborne, there is also evidence to suggest the cuts will be felt more widely than his drawn-curtain trope was intended to suggest. Labour’s leaders claim that 60% of the households likely to be affected by them are not daytime sleepers, but in work. That would include many of the blue-collar strivers the Tories seek to reassure.

To offset the potential damage, Mr Osborne has already announced a few well-aimed sweeteners, including plans to cancel a rise in fuel duty and to raise the personal income-tax threshold. More such promises will follow: an influential Tory think-tanker, Neil O’Brien, has been recruited to design them. But, in the absence of much cash to command, his task will not be easy. Without a rapid uptick in Britain’s economic fortunes, which few expect, the effect of the welfare squeeze is likely to be painful and its political benefits for the government fleeting. Even if the electorate continues to approve of Mr Osborne’s hard-nosed penny-pinching, it may punish his party for it at the next election, due in 2015. Voters do not always thank politicians for pandering to their less charitable urges.

Economist.com/blogs/bagehot