GEORGE OSBORNE is an incompetent Chancellor. That’s if you believe his claims to want a strong economy and a reduced national debt.

The Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition killed off a modest return to economic growth in 2010, miring this country in years of recession.

Osborne’s initial claim that the books would be “balanced” by 2015 had to be jettisoned as spending cuts wrought havoc and left British people worse off — a study by economists at the University of California found that the Con-Dems managed to shave £3,500 off the average household income in their first three years.

Lower incomes means a reduced tax take. So, of course, does cutting taxes for the rich — another Osborne policy. So our Chancellor was forced to admit halfway through the last parliament that actually “austerity” would continue until 2019.

The Conservatives made a huge play of how Labour had left Britain in debt, pretending that this had been caused by high public spending when in fact it was a consequence of bailing out the bankers who caused a global financial crisis in 2007-8.

Actually, Osborne borrowed more in five years in power than Labour did in 13. Britain’s debt was £417 billion higher in 2015 than in 2010, compared to £407bn higher in 2010 than in 1997.

Britain’s GDP is still lower per head than before the crash, while real-terms incomes are much lower. Of course, those at the top of the pile have done pretty well out of Osborne’s reign — the wealth of the 1,000 richest people in the kingdom doubled between 2010 and 2014 — so it would be unfair to accuse the Chancellor of total ineptitude. He knows how to look after his own.

And another thing he knows how to do is set traps for the Labour Party. Such was yesterday’s nonsensical guff about legislating for permanent budget surpluses.

Like all the pre-election rubbish about a “triple lock” stopping him from raising taxes, any legislation in this field wouldn’t mean anything. Parliament cannot bind its successors or even itself, so passing a law saying future parliaments can’t do certain things is singularly pointless. Even Thatcher’s chancellor Nigel Lawson saw how idiotic the Tory posturing over the triple lock was, warning that governments cannot tie their hands when they are unable to foresee future circumstances.

On the face of it, this surplus fixation is equally impossible to enforce. However, any such move by the government would still be dangerous.

By ruling out the ability to dig deep on occasion to avoid the collapse of banks and the loss of millions of people’s savings, the government is potentially setting us up for a fall.

More significantly, it is cutting off its ability to invest in long-term projects. 

There are immediate human needs which Britain needs to invest in to meet — massively expanded social housing; a looming social care crisis; an underfunded health service.

That’s not to mention the action we need to deal with climate change, which again requires economic planning and investment.

The Conservatives are not going to invest in any of these things anyway.

But the other parties, especially Labour, will be challenged by the Chancellor to back his absurd new rule or be tarred with the “big spender” brush he has deployed so successfully over the past five years.

They mustn’t give in. If they do, no party will be able to pledge the investment our country needs to be successful.

We would also run the risk of indulging in Gordon Brown-style fudges such as PFI, keeping borrowing off the balance sheet for now but storing up crippling problems for the future.

It is up to the parties of the opposition to call Osborne’s bluff on this one and expose his latest wheeze as the irresponsible gimmick that it is.