The UK chancellor of the exchequer has delivered the first purely Tory budget in nearly two decades. Amid all the never-ending sound and fury of the Greek crisis, it received little attention outside of Britain, which is a shame.

Followed quickly by a series of announcements about changes to the planning regime, George Osborne has delivered something rather radical.

Not only were his proposals bold, sometimes extremely so, but they unashamedly stole many ideas from the shattered Labour Party’s manifesto, flew in the face of economic orthodoxy and infuriated the right wing of his party.

Curiously, the response from business organisations was relatively muted. I suspect they were bemused and simply didn’t know what to think. Or maybe further reductions in corporation tax (Ireland take note) pacified them. Osborne is embarking on a big experiment, the results of which will be fascinating to observe.

Minimum wage hike

In an utterly shameless stealing of Labour’s clothes, the Tories are to raise the

minimum wage

in a series of steps throughout the five-year life of the current parliament. The new floor for wages in 2020 will be £9 an hour (roughly €12.50), which is actually a pound an hour more than Labour was suggesting.

Orthodox economics argues strongly that this will cost jobs.There is disagreement about just how sensitive the level of employment actually is to the minimum wage but little argument about the general direction: higher statutory pay will raise unemployment.

Critics of the measure warn: “Just look at Europe, with much higher minimum wages and double the UK’s unemployment rate.” The new floor is to be called the “Living Wage”, something most Tory politicians have regarded with suspicion, if, indeed, they have ever heard of it.

If low-paid workers who retain their jobs can rejoice, they will be less pleased by lower tax credits, an innovation largely introduced by the last Labour government that supplements low incomes with state handouts. Osborne has not hid the fact he suspects many businesses have exploited the tax credit system to keep wages artificially low. On this line of thinking, tax credits are as much a subsidy to business as they are to the actual recipients.

If ever there is a good time to launch this kind of bold experiment, it is surely when the economy is at full employment. The UK economy has been a veritable job-generating machine over the last few years. If there is any economic rationale for these measures, it must be that something is misfiring in the labour market, particularly in the demand and supply of unskilled workers.

Add in the observation that companies, in general, have rarely been more profitable, there may be something to the idea that giving them a kick to pay their workers a little more may not make much of a difference to many businesses.

George Osborne talks a lot about UK productivity: the flipside to the jobs miracle has been ultra-low productivity growth.

Regeneration of Britain's (in truth this really means England's) cities has become another key part of the chancellor's new vision. Another is a radical set of proposals to revamp the planning process.

Imagine giving every Dubliner the right to add two storeys to their houses without having to ask for planning permission. That’s what the chancellor proposes for London, along with new powers to penalise planning authorities which delay the approval process and new suggestions about the development of brownfield sights.

Vested interests

Plans to revamp planning have come and gone almost as frequently as have chancellors, so we will see. Planning is one of those things that everyone knows needs an overhaul but nobody ever has the stomach to take on vested interests. It’s one reason why nowhere near enough houses get built in the UK.

Osborne is now widely regarded as prime minister in waiting. It appears that he is now single-handedly running the UK economy while David Cameron busies himself with just one task: the Brexit referendum.

The chancellor deserves praise simply for having a vision. His European counterparts can only look on in envy as policy there now simply amounts to one crisis summit after another.