Now he faces open revolt from journalists on the Sun, the paper which laid the foundations of his media empire with its "soaraway" success in the 1970s.
Supporters of tax cuts might argue that we will lose our AAA rating anyway if growth fails to materialize - because even the new, revised and realistic OBR projection has growth at 0.8% this year (it will struggle to meet that) and a combination of consumer spending and a soaraway investment boom from 2013 onwards.