George Osborne spoke to Telegraph’s Festival of Business this morning and he gave a speech that was dominated by the issue of growth, or rather its absence. He reiterated the tax cuts and entrepreneurial relief measures first unveiled in March’s Budget.
Osborne didn’t limit himself to his list of accomplishments. It was an empathetic speech. He related his memories of the “ups and downs” of his father’s business, the drapers Osborne&Little. He acknowledged the pressures of running your own enterprise in conjunction with a busy family life; a constant struggle that is exacerbated during hard times. “I know the kinds of pressure you are under,” he said. Osborne is frequently accused of being remote, possessing the stately airs of the Ancien Regime. With today’s approach, though it ran the risk of appearing patronising, teh chancellor tried to display a warmer side.
Osborne also devoted some time to the effect of the global economy on his audience, and apportioning blame. He said, “There is a lack of belief in the ability of political systems in the Eurozone and North American to respond [to the crisis].” He continued, “Crucially, my European colleagues need to accept the remorseless logic of monetary union that leads from a single currency to greater fiscal union.”
There will be those (and there are those) who see the Eurozone’s inability to master its own immediate destiny as proof that Jacques Delors’ sacred political project was always doomed to fail and will not work now. Even Ken Clarke, that arch-Europhile, implied that Eurozone politicians should be pragmatic for the moment. He told Newsnight yesterday:
“What the Eurozone needs is fiscal discipline. It doesn’t need the same level of tax, the same level of spending. Governments can decide for themselves if they will be high tax and low spend and so forth. But discipline, fiscal discipline, control of deficits is required. We agreed when I was chancellor and the Germans led the way in breaking it, because we didn’t have the mechanism in place to enforce it. Let us hope that they get back to fiscal discipline if the euro is to remain intact.”
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