The roles of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Public Enemy Number One are usually inseparable in the eyes of GPs - and George Osborne is no different.
His cuts in May were bad enough, but the profession greeted October's Comprehensive Spending Review with outrage after he hinted that he wanted GPs and other healthcare professionals to increase their "productivity".
Disapproval of the man known in Oxford University´s elite and rowdy Bullingdon Club as "Oik" (he attended a minor public school rather than Eton) reached a crescendo when he gave the green light to increase GPs´ retirement age to 65 in the Budget last month.
As if giving his backing to the Hutton Report wasn´t bad enough, he also included a pledge to clamp down on tax avoidance in the Budget´s small print - a move which could result in GP practices being targeted... again.
This article appeared as part of Pulse's list of the top 20 most influential non-GPs of 2011. The full list can be found here.
The top 50 most influential GPs of 2011 can also be viewed here.
