Fair?

I listened to George Osborne being interviewed about the rise in VAT on Radio 4 the other day, he used the words fair or fairer a lot, not words that i would use about a rise that will hit poor families the hardest!

The Institute of Fiscal Studies reckons that the VAT rise will lop 1% off the after-tax incomes of the richest 10% and 2.25% of those of the poorest 10%, hardly fair!
A fairer alternative would be to tax land owners and increase the bank levy, but of course that would be hurting their own!