Who's in the driving seat?
Was he trying to get the pretty brutal news on that particular benefit out before his CSR announcement on October 20th as some sort of softening-up exercise? Perhaps but trailing the news on the morning of his keynote speech on the first full day of the Tory conference - a conference doing its level best to celebrate being back in office - would seem to be a strange time to do it.
Unless, that is, he needed something tangible to illustrate the painful measures that the Conservatives say must be taken to get the deficit and the benefits system under control. It does that job, certainly.
For alongside the announcement about withdrawing child benefits for those earning over £44,000 a year, there was a fierce attack on Labour's financial record in office. Mr Osborne wants no one to be in any doubt as to who he and his party believe are responsible for the current financial situation, nor who he feels voters - particularly that "squeezed middle"- should be looking to blame at the ballot box after the cuts seem to bite. They took you to the brink of bankruptcy. They left you with crippling debts. We're now having to sort it out so yes, tough must go hand in hand with fair.
His message in a nutshell? "Don't give the keys back to the people who crashed the car."
He won't be the only one to hammer home that message in Birmingham this week. Mr Osborne and his colleagues at Westminster have another four and a half years to frame this narrative, coalition permitting.
Their colleagues in Wales have considerably less time ahead of next May's Assembly elections and some within the party seem to be approaching panic stations about the Welsh Conservatives' apparent inability to construct a similar narrative - that the cuts are a necessary, if painful response, to Labour's fiscal irresponsibility while in office.
This article on Wales Home today https://waleshome.org/2010/10/time-to-change-the-narrative-in-wales/ is a very public wake up call from Cardiff North AM Jonathan Morgan.
"In Wales we have not taken up the challenge constantly put to us by our opponents that the present situation is somehow the fault of David Cameron. The opinion poll ratings have shown that the rhetoric has started to work, Labour's poll rating according to the ITV/YouGov poll (29/09) is at 44% compared to 22% for us.
"We are holding our 2007 election position but it is also clear that in Wales Labour are becoming more popular in their heartland areas at the expense of the Liberal Democrats and Plaid. From their perspective, this proves the narrative is working and this is what we need to correct."
And if it's not corrected? "We face an electoral test unlike any other we have seen since 1997".
It's a cri de coeur, born of frustration that according to the opinion polls, the Peter Hain-inspired mantra of "savage Tory cuts being inflicted in Wales" (which got the Labour vote out for the general election on May 6th and saved a number of seats which could otherwise have got away from them) looks to be gaining a great deal of traction in an Assembly context too.
The more astute, strategic thinkers among the Welsh Conservatives have long realised that trying to convey the view that these cuts are effectively Labour's rather than the Tories' is considerably harder in a devolved context. After all, it's the UK Government's budget deficit which is being tackled and the Assembly Government's budget which is being cut as a result.
The task hasn't been made any easier by the post-election departure of the Welsh Conservatives' highly rated director of communications to become a special adviser to Cheryl Gillan at the Wales Office.
A veteran Labour campaigner confirms they feel the YouGov poll findings are reflected on the doorsteps in their heartlands but admits that in areas like Monmouth and Pembrokeshire, there's still some residual scepticism about the way Labour allowed the deficit to rise. "You messed up our country" is still heard on some doorsteps there.
How do they think the Tories are doing in terms of getting that message across Wales-wide? "They're nowhere" comes the reply.
And that's the concern from Jonathan Morgan: "It isn't going to be easy, but if we want the public and the media to accept the Conservative position then we need to advocate it with all our strength and imagination, failure to do so will render us vulnerable to a reversal in our political fortunes".
"After spending nearly 12 years working to rebuild the Welsh Conservative Party as a credible force in Welsh politics, I have no ambition to see it flounder."
Flounder. Not a word the Welsh Conservative leader Nick Bourne will enjoy reading. But the gauntlet has been thrown down; the scale of the task for the next six months has been laid out.
If they are going to get the message across about who they believe really "crashed the car" then it sounds as though someone needs to get into the driving seat sharpish.
I'm Betsan Powys, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on .
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