Because the public had tolerated austerity measures that hit everyone, such as an across-the-board VAT rise, Team Osborne underestimated the perils of raising taxes on a few things, such as Cornish pasties.Mr Osborne needs to shake this post-budget reputation for ineptitude before it sets hard.
But it remains to be seen whether the population will tolerate the austerity needed to bring the debt burden down to a reasonable level.
Not only are we not in an economic position, recovering from the Wall Street-induced Great Recession to be able to tolerate the austerity trumpeted by Romney and half-conceded to by Obama, but we don't need to resort to it.
His "kinder, more caring" society will not tolerate homelessness, more austerity or more inequality, he said.
It is clear the Portugese will not tolerate much more austerity: when I was there last month it has the appearance of a placid country, where the dominant emotion is not anger but gloom.
At the beginning of the crisis, most voters tolerated the government's austerity programme.
At this point, with the electoral victory of the Syriza coalition under new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Greece's voters have shown that they aren't going to tolerate any more of the austerity that foreign creditors have demanded and that the outgoing government imposed.
Even close companions did not relish his austerity, and associates tolerated but did not approve of his inflexible living standards.
The court's decision, he wrote, has now called into question "how much austerity will be tolerated, not only by disgruntled citizens but also by justices who often act as the guardians of the Continent's cherished social welfare system".
The decision has now called into question how the government can meet its budgetary goals in the near term and raised the broader issue of just how much austerity will be tolerated, not only by disgruntled citizens but also by justices who often act as the guardians of the Continent's cherished social welfare system.
