A Tax on Snacks Aggravates Austerity Tensions in Britain LONDON - George Osborne, the very posh chancellor of the Exchequer, confesses that he cannot recall the last time he chomped down on a pasty, the calorie-busting savory pastry, served hot, that is beloved by millions of average Britons. Which may well explain why Mr. Osborne's proposal to impose a sales tax of 20 percent on these and other take-away snacks - while cutting the top income tax rate on financiers who work in The City and other highly paid Britons - has created such a furor here. The flap over pasties, which the British press has dubbed, somewhat inevitably, "Pasty-gate," has come to symbolize the increasingly vitriolic debate in Britain over who should shoulder the burden of the government's drive to cut debt and spending. The tax has ignited a political firestorm, prompting even generally pro-government tabloid newspapers to attack it and leading the equally posh British prime minister, David Cameron, to claim - not all that convincingly - that he, truly, is a pasty aficionado. It has also revived memories of the poll tax and other unpopular measures imposed by previous Conservative Party-led governments that left Britons feeling that their leaders were out of touch. The latest tax, announced last week as part of the government's newest austerity budget, was aimed at closing a loophole that exempted hot, freshly baked, take-away food products, like pasties, pies, toasted sandwiches and rotisserie chickens, from the value-added tax, a point-of-sale tax. Under the new budget, which effectively becomes law immediately, the price of such items will henceforth include a value-added tax of 20 percent. Until now, the coalition government headed by Mr. Cameron's Conservative Party has made a strong case that, given a budget deficit of more than 10 percent of gross domestic product, Britain has no choice but to embark on one of the most severe austerity regimes in Europe. Leading the charge has been Mr. Osborne, Mr. Cameron's close friend and top political adviser, whose social pedigree in class-obsessed Britain - a graduate of Oxford like Mr. Cameron, he stands to inherit a family baronetcy from his father - is among the more refined in Parliament. As the economy continues to sag, however, Mr. Osborne's clarion call that "we are all in this together" is beginning to ring hollow for a British public battered by high gasoline prices, a dormant job market and, now, more expensive pasties. On Thursday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted that the British economy would experience its second consecutive quarter of contraction this spring, putting the economy back in recession. According to a YouGov poll released Thursday, Mr. Cameron's government would get 33 percent of the popular vote today, compared with 43 percent for the opposition Labour Party. Mr. Cameron's party won 36 percent of the vote in 2010, and the next election must be held before May 7, 2015. While it has always been expected that the party in power would take its political lumps as austerity bites, the bet made by Mr. Osborne has been that the prospect of economic recovery would be enough to persuade voters that the current Conservative-led coalition government was better positioned than Labour to improve Britain's parlous finances and make the economy more competitive on world markets. That, in fact, was the stated impetus behind Mr. Osborne's central budget measure: cutting the top 50 percent tax rate to 45 percent, a move that many economists have supported as essential to attracting more investment and bolstering London's claim to be world's leading financial hub. Mr. Osborne proposed to pay for the cut in part by increasing the fees that the wealthier pay when they buy and sell expensive properties in London. Other revenue increases, however, came down on the middle class, including the scrapping of tax allowances for retirees - a change that was quickly dubbed the granny tax - and the snack-food levy, now known as the pasty tax. What has inflamed the debate is not so much the fact that the chancellor announced the tax, but how he has defended it. At a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday, Mr. Osborne was asked when he had last sampled a pasty at Greggs, a nationwide bakery chain that specializes in the delicacy. The chancellor, who in public settings can come across as haughty in comparison with the more glib Mr. Cameron, scrambled for an appropriate response before acknowledging what had by then become obvious to all: He does not frequent the chain. The British press, which delights in poking fun at the upper-class foibles of Mr. Osborne and Mr. Cameron, pounced. The Sun called on the government to reverse the move, and The Times published a list of Greggs outlets that it asserted would be most convenient for the busy chancellor. A lunch-hour visit Thursday to the closest shop on the Times list - less than a mile from Mr. Osborne's residence in the Westminster area of central London - found a line of civil servants, construction workers and others waiting to pay 90 pence, or $1.43, for a sausage roll or £1.42 for a heartier steak bake. Mike Henderson, a network engineer who is a frequent Greggs customer, said he was not surprised that the chancellor was taking aim at low-budget snacks to raise money. "This government does what it wants to do, and we have to follow," he said. Using a popular nickname for the Conservatives, he added, "Don't forget, these are the Tories. It's history repeating itself. Indeed, Mr. Cameron's signature accomplishment has been to detoxify a political brand that in the post-Thatcher years had become closely linked with policies that favored the better-off. And while the hubbub over the pasty tax will dissipate, the aftertaste of an out-of-touch government that is looking out after its own may well linger. "We cannot all afford to pay £3 a day for a sandwich lunch," Mr. Henderson said. Here you can come in and get a cheese roll for 90 pence.