There is a cracking scoop in today’s Mail on Sunday. An anonymous Tory backbench MP has excoriated George Osborne’s performance as Chancellor. The MP repeats many of the arguments made by Fraser on Thursday, as the latest lines of the Budget were excised. Osborne is, apparently lazy, uninterested in economics and hubristic. The MP implies that Osborne’s mind is not sufficient to pull this off as chancellor. He writes:
”[Nigel] Lawson used to say that he had to work 18 hours a day and virtually gave up alcohol just to keep on top of things when he was Chancellor. And he had a formidable intellect to start with.’
Osborne’s shortcomings, in the MP’s view, also make him unsuitable to be election co-ordinator, a job in which he has not excelled:
‘His reputation as a political strategist is a huge fallacy. This is the man who stopped us winning an outright victory at the last Election against one of the most unpopular Labour governments of all time.’
All of this reinforces the fact that Osborne’s reputation has taken a serious knock in recent weeks, and it adds to the sense that 2 years of half-heartedness have led to this moment. But, the article’s real target is David Cameron. The MP threatens:
‘Cameron’s position is safe. For now. But there is only so long that backbenchers will put up with him mincing round the world glad-handing every leader in sight. He has no vision. His only interest is in power, not policies.
It is wrong to assume the 2010 intake of Tories are all fanatical pro-Cameroons just because they are under 40. Many have become disillusioned and are fiercely critical of him, in private, at least. One day they will go public.
They are not intimidated by him and one or two are ferociously ambitious. Their view is ‘Cameron became an MP in 2001 and party leader four years later, so why shouldn’t we go for the leadership in 2015?’’
This criticism echoes what one might hear in certain corridors of Westminster. Combined with the exodus of advisers and political brains from Number 10 and CCHQ, it suggests that the government is listless. Plainly, Cameron has more work to do as a party manager, and as a leader.
It’s also worth noting that Cameron seems very likely to invite the brightest and best of the 2010 intake to develop policy, which may go some way to addressing the problems above. The Independent on Sunday is the latest newspaper to carry this rumour.
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