Should Osborne remain Shadow Chancellor?

scribber 2

Osborne should go. He is not up to the job. Brogan's anaysis is quite wrong. Labour would have much more to fear from a hard hitting shadow chancellor rather than one that sits around looking soulful

David Parker

Whilst Osborne would probably perform quite well as party chairman, Eric Pickles would perform equally well, if not better and would strengthen the balance between the Cameron clique and others. The question is whether Osborne is really capable of "upping his game"?
If not, then a straight swap between Osborne and Hague might seem a better bet. Although this might be seen as a gift to Brown, it could be a trojan horse to both Darling and Milliband.

Austin Barry

Osborne lacks gravitas. He resembles a rather fey light-comedy actor cast as a junior cleric. The Conservatives need a heavy hitter and Hague should replace Osborne as soon as possible.

Short the UK

I think GB would be scared stiff if they brought back Ken as an emergency measure.

GO is not fit for purpose.

I don't think you have the time to wait for him to up his game. He has had a year since the Rock collapsed and he has been woeful. Pathetic. Really, pathetic.

I think it would be bold and decisive to move him. He has no gravitas. This is a national emergency and the public want gravitas. GO is too inexperienced. He just can't see the big picture and get ahead of the curve. He seems so reactive.

I think Clarke is the man. This is purely tactical.

In a war you get your best generals out of retirement. You want to win the war. The Tories are really losing this war. Badly!! I feel pretty angry about this.

I really do wonder if Cammie is up to the job.

ballofchalk

There are far too many polite, well brought-up chaps in the shadow cabinet. They need a few more rough-edged blokes. Pickles must be made party Chairman - Osborne would be hopeless. Although I loath his pro-EU stance, Ken Clarke is just what is needed as shadow chancellor. Failing that Hague. What they need are people who won't take Government/media bullshit. When you are HM's opposition you need to know how to dish out the rough stuff, and I'm afraid that the nice Eton boys just don't seem to know how to do it. Smiling politely and offering fine thoughts is not enough. If they want to know how it's done they should study the late Robin Cooke's interviews from 1995 to 1997.

strapworld

Austin Barry is right there.

Although I would like to see John Redwood and Ken Clarke back hitting the labour party. It is going to get very very dirty (as yesterday identified). We need fighters not wee boys!

Could anyone explain, to this arch critic of boy george, exactly what 'qualities' the boy has?

Anyone that speaks out of turn, who bad mouths colleagues with people, such as Lord Mandleson, is certainly not the kind of person I want to do business with or work alongside. He is most certainly not the kind of person I want to be representing me as a Prospective Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is just a nasty person in a little boy's body.

Of course he should go!

Ken

We seem to be forgetting that it was Osborne who played such a key role in the Tory revival by his proposals over inheritance tax. There is nothing wrong with him as shadow chancellor.

Bringing back Ken Clarke, as has been suggested, wouldn't work because it would revive memories of the Nasty Party days. Redwood also. Hague reportedly doesn't want the job. Pickles is too valuable where he is. The last thing the Tories need right now is disarray.

DM

I think Cameron should strengthen his whole economic team into an economic rebuttal unit. I agree with Short the UK that the war is on and it needs feistier figures than Osborne. (Let him micro manage economic policy in the background, but he is not a good frontman for interviews).
Hague would be good. He has done Shadow chancellor before, he has gravitas, wit and experience and speaks bluntly. Also, he is mentally agile to keep on top of Brown's twisted arguments.
Ken Clarke is good too, and should speak out (which he does) but if you give him the prime position, you have a europhile at the helm, and sooner or later Labour will make that cause trouble.

Frankly, Cameron needs to inject the same passion that he felt in yesterday's PMQs into economic affairs. That's what people want to hear.

ballofchalk

A further thought: second rate generals are always fighting the last war they lost. I have a feeling that that is precisely what Cameron and his pals are doing. Not only have they failed to notice that the economic world is changing fast, but they also failed to spot, as David Davies didn't, that our society is being radically changed by constant attacks from a hugely authoritarian Government.

Gordon Musgo-soon

When it's time to replace somebody, delay never serves. There will never be a good time to do it, but an election approaches, so do it now and give the new person a chance.

Daniel

I think it is probably a mistake to personalise the issue in these terms. The central problem, it seems to me, is that the global financial crisis has revealed very serious flaws in the neo-liberal free market ideology that has dominated the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 - notably the belief that markets are self-regulating and that government is more a hindrance than a help to wealth creation. When large global banks go cap in hand to national governments, begging to be part-nationalised, you know something really fundamental has changed in the way people think about these issues. Barack Obama was exceptionally well placed to exploit this development, because the ideological heritage of the US Democratic Party is one that makes it natural and plausible for them to invoke Roosevelt and the New Deal. The Tories cannot do that because they have failed, in opposition, to have the fundamental debate about the respective roles of the state and private enterprise that should have happened after their three successive election defeats. You cannot hope to personify "change" if the change you represent, in the public mind, is actually a reversion to the ideological certainties of a (largely) unreconstructed Thatcherism that does not meet the needs of the time. When Obama calls for tax cuts in the US, this comes across as the expression of a Keynesian world view that feels appropriate in the midst of a devastating banking crisis. When the Tories argue for tax cuts, it still signals to many people that they are playing to the core vote and are willing to sacrifice public services into the bargain. I'm not saying this is a fair perception, as Cameron has done much to shift the party from the right wing ideological comfort zone that people like Simon Heffer are apparently content to inhabit. But the perception nonetheless persists that the Tories are not comfortable with pro-active government, at a time when this seems to most people to be the correct and pragmatic policy response. At the moment, Brown is tapping into this altered public mood very adroitly, though any short term success is likely to be outweighed by the political damage that will inevitably result when the Government has been presiding over a recession for two years.

The Tories need to decide where they stand on the key issue of what the role of the state should be in a prolonged and destabilising economic downturn. Simply repeating the mantra that "we believe in society, it's just not the same thing as the state" is not enough.

Part of the Tory counter-attack should consist of continuing to point out the long term dangers of deficit financing (ie a negative argument about the legacy of the Blair-Brown years). But negativism is not enough, partly because when the country is in crisis most people actually want to believe that their leaders know what they are doing. The Tories need to develop a much clearer, and positive, narrative about how they can use the resources of government to help ordinary people in a time of great economic security. Osborne and Cameron are moving in the right direction, but they have been wrong footed because the Party itself has not yet had the fundamental debate it needs about the direction of economic policy in a world that now recognises the limits, as well as the benefits of Thatcherism.

Ruairidh

He should go but not now.

I don't think he's handled the Tory response to the economic crisis at all well and he looked out of his depth during Mandelson scandel. However moving him now would be a sign of general Tory weakness and would damage their credibility on the economy, an issue that is bound to be central to the political agenda over the next year. Cameron should tell him he has 6 months to up his game or get moved but also give him more support. The Tory message on matters economic has been poor and that is also for DC to fix. GO needs better material if he is to make an impact.

Susan Hill

Austin Barry says exactly what I would have said..Hague is a match for Brown, at the despatch box and on the economy. And as that is going to be the main subject on the agenda for some considerable time they should make use of him.. he is far and away the hardest hitter, the best debater and the most intelligent they have got so for goodness sake...put him and Osborne in the scales and O is feather-light by comparison. He should go.
Not, however, that Hague`s own daft mistake in going to the Barclays shindig on the weekend the entire banking system looked close to collapse, should be forgotten too quickly. Not as daft as Osborne and the Russian oligarch and the yacht, no. But still daft.

Aidan

He was over-promoted. He has failed to land a single blow on Labour during the worst financial crisis of a generation. He has even been upstaged by Vince Cable, who has made no constructive contribution whatever, but at least gets on the TV screens saying something, even if it is nonsense.

Yes, Ken should be brought back if he can be persuaded to keep quiet about his views on Europe, even if he isn't willing to change them

Short the UK

Willian Hague would be a very wrong choice. He doesn't have much gravitas. The public want father figures. Not kids in baseball caps. Brutal, but true.

DM

Short the UK - Hague's upped his game since then, has he not? Acclaimed biographer, top class debater, Tory through and through. Absolute rod of iron supporting Cameron. He's an asset to the team, not a kid in a baseball cap now.

Andrew Forbes

Cameron may be afraid of appointing Hague. Though Hague would savage Labour brilliantly, he may appear more effective than Cameron himself, and that would never do.

wonderfulforhisage

And all because they thought that the Conservative Party was a 'brand' and not a collection of individuals with common beliefs and values. One might as well rebrand the RFU because rugby football is not as popular as soccer - play with a round ball and ban handling.

Cameron and Osborne miss the point in operating from the belief that branding is what politics is about - the chap with the most attractive brand gets the keys to number 10.

The Satanic Trinity of Mandelson, Bliar & Campbell (father, son & hg) were brilliant 'branders' and sadly the Conservative Party voted for Blair Lite having been bedazzled by his oratory.

Peter Hitchens is right, the best thing that could happen to the Country is for the Tories to lose the next election and disintegrate. Then there would be an opportunity for a party of principle, rather than spin & branding, to rise from the ashes.

Ruairidh

I'm not sure Hague would be the right choice right now. The Barclays shindig thing makes him look less a man of the people and the 'I feel your pain' stuff could look hollow. I think Ken could be a better bet, he has the credibility and would strike the right tone. Redwood may well have the skills for it but his reputation as all brain and no emotion makes him a risk. Overcome that negative public preception though and he could do well.

HJ

Peter,

Did you mean "concentrate on his princiPAL role"?

I have some sympathies. Brown has screwed up badly through his incompetence. However, the point is what to do now - and over the last few months things have moved very quickly and required timely actions to prevent meltdown. Brown and Darling and the BoE get to see the figures before everyone else, so it's easy to out-manoeuvre Osborne.

Osborne simply needs to repeatedly point out who got us in this mess, the reasons for it and what, longer term, the Tories would do about it. There's not much point arguing about what they would do in the short term as they won't get the opportunity, so Brown can just rubbish anything they say, with impunity.

Osborne should just keep pointing out the scale of the problem and just how irresponsible Brown has been. He only needs to quote from Brown's budget and other speeches to drive home the message.

C Powell

Excellent posts from Daniel and ballofchalk; DM's last point is well taken too.

Cameron himself needs to get much more involved in this, the whole economic team needs to up its game and do some serious thinking. There are three key things they need to do: (1) pin the blame much more clearly on Brown; (2) recognise - fast - that the world has changed and that there now is - and has to be - a role for government in the economy. The question is what that role should be and how best to carry it out. Labour don't really have a clue but are winning by default simply because the Tories aren't apparently thinking about this; and (3) come up with one or two big ideas which resonate with ordinary people and keep on repeating them - ad nauseam - so that people know what the Tories will do.

They also need to grab hold of the debate on civil liberties/authoritarianism and make it their own. Why not, for instance, contrast Labour's insistence on controlling every aspect of our lives with their negligently laissez faire approach to debt and public spending and regulation over the last 11 years. They should have focused like a laser beam on the economy and let us live our lives how we want. That's a point which the Tories should be making.

Finally, bring back David Davies. He's too good to ignore and speaks to ordinary voters in a way that some of Cameron's chums don't.

Given that we Coffee Housers can - day after day - come up with all sorts of interesting/intelligent suggestions on a range of topics, why is it that Tory MPs are so silent on, well, practically everything? What are they all doing?

Dr Tchok

Osborne should go. He shows no signs of understanding the problem, as illustrated by the woeful hire-the-three-month-unemployed idea. I'm sure Brogan is right, in that Labour would make hay out of the change, but provided a replacement was a heavy hitter who could make the case, and expose this government's failure, the Labour triumphalism wouldn't last long. Osborne has already admitted he doesn't know as much about economics as Vince Cable; why not admit he doesn't know as much as Ken Clarke?

Make the change now!.

biggestaspidistra

AB:"He resembles a rather fey light-comedy actor cast as a junior cleric."

Doesn't this describe all of the shadow cabinet? And a few of the other side.

DM

wonderfulforhisage - I disagree. It's a team, but some of them are better being striker than defender.

Pete Hoskin

HJ: thanks for the spot - that was sloppy of me. Corrected now.

oldtimer

Osborne should stay. I seem to be in the minority here in thinking that Cameron/Osborne have been saying the right things.

It is worth remembering that there are two strands of events to consider, (1) the politics of the Westminster bubble and (2) the real world economy.

Inside the Westminster bubble Brown and co are doing all they can to get rid of Osborne because it would damage the Conservatives. This ranges from floating phantom £15 billion tax cuts to provoke a Tory response to flooding blogs like this one with anti-Osborne remarks to destabilise the Conservative party and unsettle its supporters. Labour has had some success with this strategy - expect them to keep pushing it.

In the real world economy Brown and co are up the creek without a paddle - nor is there a paddle readily to hand. Cameron and Osborne have said this (using other analogies) on many occasions. They also seem to recognise the likely futility of any government measures to prevent the almighty crash we are now suffering. There is no mileage whatsoever in offering up quack remedies or charlatan prescriptions to solve this problem short term. There are none.

In the the medium to long term the solution is the transfer of resources back from the public to the private sector. No one can possibly know, right now, the size of the problem that is to be faced or the solutions that will therefore be needed. It is fire fighting right now. For evidence of this, just consider Mr Paulson`s sudden change of tack with the TARP bailout package in the USA.

Don Logan

Ken Clarke would make mincemeat out of Brown.

Short the UK

DM - I like Hague and my mother thinks he's wonderful.

I just think at times of war you bring out the heavy hitters and Ken is the heaviest the young Tories have.

The petrified voters need nursing.

golfwidow

There is no doubt Osborne needs to up his game, but I remain unconvinced that he should remain in his post. As long as Speaker Martin continues to indulge the likes of Skinner, Osborne will prove toxic for his party.

Hague would make mincemeat of Darling and the sooner he takes Osborne's place the better.

strapworld

I note that nobody can come up with any 'quality' possessed by Osborne.

CS

***We seem to be forgetting that it was Osborne who played such a key role in the Tory revival by his proposals over inheritance tax. There is nothing wrong with him as shadow chancellor.***

Yes, let's not forget that, had it not been for Osborne's inheritance tax thingummy, Brown would most likely have won last Autumn's general election and be sitting pretty to ride out the economic storm with no need to call another election until 2012.

m dowding

Trolls everywhere!
Osborne should stay and announce the policy of increasing income tax allowances to the level ten years of inflation should have placed them, circa £8000. Then fund the lost revenue from higher earners, say a 45% upper band starting at £45000. This is a possible move by Brown/Darling next week (but there will be small print). If not that, at least pre-empt any move by Labour.

jon dee

Dammit the Shadow Chancellor should have hit hard long before now.Stop pussy-footing around and expose Brown for the sham he is. The facts are there,get moving.
Ken Clarke would have cleared this lot out long before,even with the BBCs help,Brown was able to create his myth as a global guru.
Internationally we are not fooling anyone,so why in the UK.

Tiberius

I'm with oldtimer. A very good post.

Short the UK

oldtimer - I am a Tory member. At least us con'stars say what we think. We are critical thinkers. Not like most on the left. Being a con. is all about open thinking and hard discourse.

Tough.

Travis Bickle

Ken Clarke would at least get a fair platform from BBC and the rest of the media, bit of a loony tune as far as the EUSSR is concerned but certainly has gravitas, that sadly Osborne does not enjoy yet, on economic issues

Geoff

Osborne is doing very very badly. The tories are losing the economic argument and brown is increasingly widely recognised to be the only front-rank politician with any sort of plan.

The trouble is, I rather agree with Peter that moving GO would be a severe blow to Cameron. Whoever replaced him, Hague or Clarke or Gove would be a significant rival - and the very act of doing the switch would be admission that the novice tag was the right one.

If it was right for GO, why not DC - and there you have the central problem

So I fear we are stuck with a weak shadow chancellor and a weak team all the way through to the election

Punk Economist

Oldtimer: you're being too sensible. You're also assuming that the public will automatically reward Cameron and Osborne for standing around saying "Nah-nah-told you so" all the time.

The Conservative Party has got itself into a mess - and it's a real world mess, not just a Westminster bubble mess - because they haven't developed an alternative to Boom-time Brown:

(1) 2005-2007: Pre-Brown; Tory Party focuses on decontaminating brand and pretending to be a blue version of Blair, gambles on Brown being a sociopathic loser

(2) 2007 June-Sept: Early Brown. Brown does not turn out to be a sociopathic loser; Tory Party panics and U-Turns with exciting tax cut pledge which, er, turns out to be a Good Idea after all

(3) Oct 2007-Sept 2008: Middle Brown, where it turns out he is a sociopathic loser after all; Tory Party does nothing and looks smug, fails to spot Cable (of all people) making the running on financial issues

(4) from Oct 2008 - Late Brown, where the socipathic nerd emerges from his telephone box to save the world; Tory Party appears to be pretending to be a white version of Obama.

You might say that they failed to fix the roof while the sun was shining. Right now the next election is looking to be a choice between re-running 1992 [unpopular Govmt which cocked-up wins by default] or re-running 1970 [uninspiring opposition surprises even itself by winning].

Ray Nal

Of course he should stay. Its true that the old has-beens on the Tory back benches want him to go but I don't rate their judgment. They are the ones who've kept the Tories out of office for 11 years.
And the ubiquitous Rothschilds might want him
to go to satisfy the odious Nat's ego.
And its true Brown is terrified of Osborne's superior intellect and would prefer him to go.
For all those very reasons he should stay. And I like him. One of the best things about him is that he's confident enough about himself not to need the interference of new age style gurus and Machiavellian figures telling how to behave.

Sally C

Too many people who don't get it.
Osborne should stay.
He will come through. I have not forgotten how he saved our backsides last Autumn.
He'll be back.

Alfred T Mahan

Who else is there?

Ken Clarke - toxic, and wrong, on Europe;
John Redwood - I admire his blog and brain, but he doesn't have the support in the party;
William Hague - says he doesn't want the job;
and, er - is that it? Is there no one else with economic nous in the Parliamentary Party?

Doesn't say much for strength in depth, does it? Perhaps DC now regrets being so hasty over Howard Flight, especially when HF has been proved right if tactless.

The military maxim is not to reinforce failure. I'm afraid that Osborne has failed to demonstrate that either he or DC actually understand what needs to be done. There might once have been a need (personally I don't think so, but let it go) to hide unpleasant necessities from the electorate, but that is evidently no longer the case and there is no justification for the policy and principles vacuum.

So I think a change would on balance be best. Don't know who the successor should be, though.

Barnaby Trubble

"He resembles a rather fey light-comedy actor cast as a junior cleric. "

Yes indeed. Derek Nimmo as the Rev Mervyn Noote. Except Nimmo never made me want to kick him.

Max Kaye

oldtimer is right: removing Osborne is unnecessary and just playing into NuLab's hands.

dennis

I agree with Sally C, Oldtimer and Tiberius.

The headbanging tendency so plentifully represented in this thread had their head for seven years, during which they got the party precisely nowhere.

George Osborne can claim a largew part of the credit for current successes.

Cameron and Osborne are anyway indivisible. Imagine Castor without Pollux, Cosmas without Damian, Marks without Spencer etc.

Strapworld - qualities? He's got nous. He's a good tactician. For starters.

Besides - he's not up against Brown as so many here seem to think. He's up against Darling, and one day may be up against Balls.

Let's hope that change comes soon - GO is the perfect antidote to Balls.

Anthony

I think this is - as the original post notes - largely academic. I can't see Cameron moving Osborne without our falling back in the polls to the point that Labour are drawing ahead. There are a number of reasons for this, largely unrelated to Osborne's actual performance in the job. I think this is a shame as Osborne is making very limited impact and doesn't seem to be holding it together particularly well. As others have noted, he's pretty low profile and when he does make a showing a lot of people I know aren't very impressed with him.

However, if we're playing Tory fantasy football...

I think the preferred option would be to bring back Ken (so long as he's prepared to put the work in). I know this is heresy to a large section of the party base, but I think he'd do a smart job and outside of the base it would be an extremely popular move.

Second choice would be to move Hague to the Treasury and then move David Davis to fill his spot in Foreign affairs. Hague is clearly clever and competent and is no longer a national laughing stock (though I think the party grassroots overestimates how popular he is with the public at large).

One of the problems is that you can beef up the party chairmanship as much as you like, it's still going to look like a demotion.

The other thing is that the more I think about it, I'm not sure I really see any of the top jobs as being something that Osborne could fill better than any of the other possible options.

Treasury - Clarke, Hague
Foreign Affairs - Davis, Hague
Home/Justice - Davis, Grieve
Party Chairmanship - Pickles
Defence - Maybe, but I don't think he'd be more than incrementally better than Fox.

Ben Drown

Dennis: "George Osborne can claim a large part of the credit for current successes."

Yes, I understand he does.

George Laird

Dear All

Should Osbourne go?

If we are looking at Osbourne to get the heave ho then we should be looking more closely at Caroline Spelman to return to being an ordinary MP.

Osbourne comes across as smarmy, not a great trait in my opinion. He also spends too much time talking about the big picture when it is the little picture that produces results.

Small steps wins hearts and minds.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Jane

I think he should stay. People have forgotten his effectiveness in taking on GB when he was Chancellor. He has mastered his brief, is intelligent and performs well in the media. Further, no political leader should follow the media's calling for someone to be removed from post.

The man made a mistake, he owned up to it and will be the better politician in the future. Leave him alone!!!

DM

It's not his brain or economic competence that's at fault, it's his performance in getting the message across, at this time. Last year at party conference, yes, he pulled the rug from under Labour's feet, but now he is not making enough impact. The creedit crunch has taken hold and times have changed. By all means keep him in the team, but the Tories badly need harder hitters when it comes to TV/radio debates, and like it or not, these debates or interviews count.

Pete, Scotland

I have lost confidence in Osborne and doubt if I will get it back.

The Tories need a heavy hitter that can pound away at New Labour and deliver a strong, simple, message that everybody can understand.

strapworld

DENNIS. tells me that Osborne has got NOUS! Oxford Dictionary:-
intellect..gumption...
common sense.

intellect-faculty of knowing and reasoning!
gumption-enterprise.
common sense- good practical sense esp. in everyday matters.

Well he certainly showed NOUS with Mandleson did he not ?

Sorry. I am not convinced. He is a lightweight. Sad high pitched voice which does not inspire. No chance with this boy

Fairminded Fred

"People have forgotten his effectiveness in taking on GB when he was Chancellor. "

The only effectiveness Osborne has had as shadow chancellor is to have survived without being demolished - there had been 5 shadows before him in the previous 8 years. If being the best of a bad bunch and doing the absolute minimum makes you a genius, you're setting the bar a bit low - which might explain what went wrong with the Tory Party in recent years.

George Laird

Dear Jane

“I think he should stay”.

Fair enough, everyone is entitled to their opinion but I would like to venture a few more opinions regarding your assessment.

“People have forgotten his effectiveness in taking on GB when he was Chancellor”.

Until the Tory Conference and his speech about raising inheritance tax, I struggle to find anything which he did that set the heather on fire.

“He has mastered his brief, is intelligent and performs well in the media”.
One would expect at least that a person in his position should know what he talking about.

As to intelligent, he has made multiple mistakes of judgement.

1/ meeting Deripaska in the first place.
2/ picking Rothschild as a friend.
3/ changing his story repeatedly regarding facts.

“Further, no political leader should follow the media's calling for someone to be removed from post”.

I agree that people should not be hounded out of their position based on other people’s dislike of a politician. People should stand or fall based on their own merits is my attitude.

“The man made a mistake”.

No, Jane, he made multiple mistakes.

“he owned up to it”.

He repeatedly changed his story.

“and will be the better politician in the future”.

This is subjective opinion.

“Leave him alone!!!”

Does that advice apply to David Cameron because at the next General Election, the fight will be based on the economic situation, he has a decision.

Finally, I have no strong feelings either way; I look on this as an outsider, stay or move; no difference to me.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

ballofchalk

Talk about Labour trolls - and no I'm not one - what about the Cameron/Osborne trolls who have finally put in an appearance. Dennis - as I said, second rate generals are always fighting the last war they lost. The elections lost since 1997 are history. The world has changed, not least because of 11 years of Labour misgovernment. Labour always fight dirty, as do their pals in the media. And no, Osborne did not frighten Brown out of an election with his inheritance tax idea, about which most people don't give a fig. It was the first showing of public discontent with Blair/Brownism and the first remotely electable Tory leader in ten years wot did it. Believe me, boy George is utterly useless in his present job, which is not to say that he wouldn't make a very good Chancellor in due course. Shadow and real thing are very different jobs - something that call me Dave has yet to realise. The opposition are emphatically not a Government in waiting, and those who pretend they are get short shrift from the British electorate, as Mr Kinnock discovered.

The Dandiprat

I think your stock of Osborne photographs is fab. This one catches him in Grattan catalogue mode.
'Boy in a windcheater'.

In the trade known as 'lost a quid, found a tanner'.

oldtimer

I read that Mr Redwood has come to the defence of Mr Osborne. See here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/13/peter-mandelson-george-osborne

TGF UKIP

Have turned on my pc pretty late and am very pleased to have done so. Great debate and many persuasive posts but the best analysis for me was that of Punk Economist.

Boy George is and was from the start a disaster. If you go back to Pete's link to Fraser's "defence" of Osborne it's pretty threadbare verging on the non-existent, even allowing for the fact that Fraser functions for much of the time as Boy George's very own Max Clifford.

What the Tory Party doesn't seem to have woken up to is the simple but very plain fact that The Party has been seized by a tightly knit goup of Notting Hill friends whose prime motivation is to sustain each other and in turn they are supported in their heist by a like-minded metropolitan media grouping.

Osborne is and for a long time has been, in my view, the deadest of dead parrots but I also recognize the view of many on here that Cameron, having stuck with him for so long (for very wrong reasons) would himself be greatly weakened by moving him.

Equally, I think that's exactly what Gordon's counting on and is intending to keep the focus entirely on the economy and go to the country in March/April 09, before the full horrors bite, on an "economic team" platform. Darling may not be all that impressive on the box but alongside Boy George ......!

So far as all the many calls above go for the return of Clarke go. All I can say, as someone who desires nothing more than the complete destruction of the Cameron Tory Party, is YES PLEASE DAVE!

Cogito Ergosum

Nice judgement, Anthony 4:114pm.

The public have been better judges of Ken Clarke's ability than has the Conservative Party or the Teletator/Spectagraph. It is time for the Conservatives to rein in their anti-Europe prejudice and offer the country the leadership it needs, from Clarke.

JONNY

My friends I very much fear we shall not have the sadistic pleasure of watching William Hague slugging into Brown and Darling.
Ken Clarke neither so it would seem.
The hot news now is that David will not plunge the dagger in.
A huge pity and a merciful kindness that will cost him dearly and us.

V S Mani

People make mistakes and one at the early stage in the career should not be capitalised to threaten his career.

He is a good thinker and will prove to be a good Chancellor. He would have learnt his lesson and this would benefit him in towing straight and narrow in the future.

Cato

He should stay since the bottom line is that he is a more able thinker and communicator than Cameron. The problem is not so much the Deripaska affair, as the way that that business and the Bullingdon Club labels have been effectively sticking giving a bad image. The tories need to tackle that image problem head on by attacking new Labour's smear tactics and turning the tables. In all these questions of elitism and Oxford for example, no one has been directing awkward questions at how David Miliband swanned into Oxford with no A grades at A level, presumably with a bit of help from his Marxist aristocracy father and the North London liberal set. If they want to turn things into a nasty class war, take the fight into their own awkward territory.

Stephen

Good for George Osbourne. A clever man. He has been tripped up by a very clever operator. He will doubtless learn from the experience if he is given the chance.