Not sure how telling people their standard of living is going to rise is not cosseting them.
tr.v. cos·set·ed, cos·set·ing, cos·sets. To pamper. n.
Telling them what they want to hear is pampering them. Had he said thing s will be difficult and everyone will do with less that would have been courage.
As for me i just want Merkels boy toy gone so its tougher for her.
“Not sure how telling people their standard of living is going to rise is not cosseting them.”
You left out the conditional statement: “if they worked harder”.