The convention is that a newly-elected Government sets out its broad policy directions for the next five years in its first Spending Review. This year’s post-election ritual, performed in the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Wednesday, was supposed to produce an earthquake or two. Seismic waves were widely expected to be felt by lower-paid wage-earners who depended for an adequate income on a government supplement – a tax credit – and who stood to lose an average of £1,300 a year. Instead the Government, faced with a revolt among its own backbenchers and still hurting from a defeat on the issue in the House of Lords, just backed off. Similarly out of step with public opinion, not least in the light of a heightened terrorist threat after Paris,