Mr Osborne is the fly in the ointment
he has about him a certain fly-by-night quality. The most reassuring change that Mr Cameron could make before the election would be to exchange Mr Osborne for Mr Kenneth Clarke. The City would be happier with Mr Clarke. The voters would be comfortable with him. Only the Conservative Party would be restive.
Greece’s troubles cast doubt over George Osborne’s “new economic model”, which envisages a rebalancing of the economy away from public spending and towards exports?
What if all countries are tightening fiscal policy? They can’t all have falling exchange rates.
If banks are to enjoy even a small hint of implicit underwriting from the state, they should pay for it.adding that
our task will be incomplete if we cannot address this fundamental inequity at the heart of global capitalism.
there has been a consistent, unanimous message about the political class from people who work in business: that nobody senior in any party understands just how bad things are
Mr Osborne is set to become Chancellor of the Exchequer not because he is a great economic thinker or strategist, and not even because he understands economics, but because he is Mr Cameron's chum. There are several people on the Conservative benches infinitely better qualified to do the job, and infinitely more needed by the country at this time of severe crisis: but they don't have a prayer.
“There is a very unattractive pattern of behaviour that is starting to emerge with George Osborne, of innuendo in pursuit of a smear.
Yesterday George Osborne issued a very serious allegation that the Prime Minister had intervened to deny the opposition of information they were entitled to. This claim has been flatly denied by the Cabinet Secretary. I suggest George Osborne withdraws this deliberate untruth to avoid embarrassing his leader at Prime Minister’s Questions today”
The big discussion in British politics for the foreseeable future will be how to tackle the debt crisis and deliver quality public services when spending is tight,
the Tories are committed to cutting spending – not just in the future, but right now in the middle of a recession. Instead of investing so we can recover more quickly and more strongly, the Tories are ideologically wedded to cutting spending to fund tax cuts for the few.
1.Edward Garnier, shadow justice minister, is out and about trying to repeal the Hunting Act of 2004. Again, the Conservative leadership claim this is a one-man campaign and fox-hunting will not feature in the manifesto. Yet the issue is Old Conservative. Raising it at this point in the electoral cycle is a mistake.
2.George Osborne’s claim on Monday that the three-year pay deals for nurses, teachers and police could be re-opened. This is dangerous territory. Sure, there is public concern about the bloated state. People don’t like chief executives of local authorities making £200,000 a year, true. And there is envy about superior pensions in the public sector.
You’re like the man who walks behind the horse with the bucket?asking
All these media interviews afterwards, the actual announcement of policy is made by the party leader. Why not by the shadow chancellor?
George Osborne's response to the boomerang budget was outstanding. He showed genuine anger at the failure of Brown to prepare us for these difficult times.
George Osborne gave a very strong performance today with some great attack lines. He received good support from Tory MPs and Labour MPs seemed surprised that his attacks were hitting home so well. If his position was in danger (which it wasn't!) it certainly isn't now. I just had a phone call from an MP friend of mine (not a Conservative) who said: "This wasn't George Osborne. It was Ozzy Osborne - drawing blood!"
Whatever it was that David Cameron put in George Osborne's tea today, it certainly worked.
The Shadow Chancellor's attack on Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling was absolutely blistering and his best Commons performance to date.
Activists contributing to party websites have labelled his interventions on Gordon Brown’s economic policy as ill-judged. Some on the ConservativeHome website voiced fears that he could cost the party the next election.
The shadow Chancellor was forced to defend himself after Labour aides and small business organisations accused him of talking down sterling despite a convention that politicians do not predict currency collapses. Kenneth Clarke, the man some MPs now want to replace Osborne, had to ride to his rescue, insisting his words were 'perfectly sensible'.
madness. For David Cameron to fire his Shadow Chancellor would be to humiliate his closest collaborator in the modernisation of the Tory party and to present a tasty scalp to Peter Mandelson. Having been through a couple of involuntary departures himself, the Dark Prince would relish having the head of his Corfu holiday companion in his trophy cabinet.
worry for Osborne is that he's pulled this attack out of the locker too early. The shadow chancellor's right to have concerns about the pound, but by voicing them now he is - rightly or wrongly - open to the accusation that he's encouraging the "torment" scenario rather than the "tonic" scenario
George Osborne and Peter Mandelson have been put on the same table at the Spectator Parliamentarian of the year lunch just kicking off at Claridges.
The last time they met for lunch it was in Corfu and the results were pretty explosive.
Neither has arrived yet. Let's see if they are willing to sit down and break bread together. Or will one of them insist on being moved? More later.
The scale and substance of the criticisms has reached a point where MPs are openly discussing possible replacements for one of David Cameron’s closest allies.
the perception that Mr Osborne, and by extension the Conservative party, has suffered a bad run-up to the recession. His decision to outflank Labour by matching the government’s spending plans and refusing to pledge unfunded tax cuts worked when the economy was in good shape. But the Tories now find themselves in the exposed position of advocating less radical action on tax and spending than their political rivals.
support for the Shadow Chancellor has also plunged among the Tory grassroots. Our latest survey of over 1,600 rank-and-file members found that 49% were satisfied with Mr Osborne but 47% were dissatisfied; a net positive rating of just 2%. That is a huge shift since last month when George Osborne enjoyed a net positive rating of +70%.
Three shadow cabinet ministers have plunged in previous surveys. Andrew Lansley - after appearing to suggest large increases in NHS spending; David Willetts - after the grammar schools row; and Caroline Spelman after concerns about the employment of her nanny
The Tory Party high command will be dismayed by the findings as they need the shadow chancellor, especially now the economy is in recession, to be a figure of growing political stature who commands respect across the political divide.
While Mr Osborne is a popular figure among Conservative MPs even some of his admirers and friends are concerned that at 37 he looks and sounds too young for such a pivotal role in the run up to the next election.
Cameron's aides insist Osborne is safe, but appearances count for a lot, and he looked slightly vulnerable one removed from the Tory leader. I can't remember the last time Osborne wasn't at Cameron's side for the weekly event. Osborne's admission that he made a "mistake" in engaging in conversations about a possible donation from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska is only the sub-plot to Lord Mandelson's links to Deripaska, but his position seems more precarious than the Business Secretary, at the moment.
But the impression remains that there must be some other reason why Mr Rothschild reacted in the way he did. Personal animosity can run deep between boyhood friends. It is never easy to see an old contemporary in a position of power. Maybe Mr Rothschild contemplates his old Bullingdon chum as Chancellor of the Exchequer in a few years time and cannot quite see it. Possibly he remembers a curly-haired geek in a dodgy waistcoat cavorting around Oxford and thinks: Nah! Or perhaps Mr Rothschild, an influential figure in the banking world who sits on advisory panels, has good reason to support his contacts in the Labour party rather than stand by his Tory friends two years from an election. Rumours abound that he acted after a phone call from Tony Blair urging him to intervene on Mandelson’s behalf.
On the surface are allegations surrounding Mandelson’s decision to remove a punitive 14.9 per cent import tariff on aluminium foil damaging Deripaska’s aluminium company Rusal. As EU Trade Commissioner he signed off a deal in December 2005 to remove it. When asked about his links with the Russian this week, Mandelson’s press officer in Brussels only admitted to meetings in 2006 and 2007 and said there could therefore have been no conflict of interest in the decision to drop the tariff. But it has since emerged that Mandelson had dinner with Deripaska in Moscow in January 2005, along with Rothschild.
Lord Mandelson is like a political cluster bomb. Since he arrived back in Britain less than a month ago he has shown that he has lost none of his ability to attract the most explosive controversy. But his years in Brussels appear to have brought a new edge. With previous scandals, over his home loan from the then Labour paymaster general, Geoffrey Robinson, or his troubled relationship with the Indian billionaires the Hinduja brothers, he was content to bring only his own party into disrepute. This time his activities look set to drag in the opposition as well.
