George osborne

Although Cabinet Ministers are said to be on strict instructions to refrain from insulting or mocking Jeremy Corbyn in their conference speeches, the Chancellor of the Exchequer couldn’t resist taking a dig at the Labour leader on Monday night. As Corbyn was speaking to a packed crowd of protesters across town, Osborne found room in his speech at the Enterprise Forum Business Reception to make a joke at the expense of the Labour leader over his appearance at the fringe protest event. At first, Osborne appeared to compliment Labour in his speech, praising the party for working out that they were not pro-business enough in the last election: ‘What was of course interesting about the

The most striking thing about Greg Clark’s speech to Tory conference today was how different his rhetoric was on house building to George Osborne. Osborne likes to talk of confrontation, of standing up to small ‘c’ conservative voters who block development, and of winning a battle with the shires (see today’s Mail front page). But Clark tried to use more conciliatory language, speaking wistfully of the ‘joy’ of his own homes: ‘ Close your eyes and picture all the homes you’ve lived in – then what you see is the story of your life. For me it began with my mum and dad’s bungalow where I grew up. Then the thrill

Andrew Adonis has not defected to the Conservatives but, as he’ll know, it will look an awful lot like he has. As tomorrow’s newspapers reveal, Lord Adonis is to give up the Labour whip to become a crossbench peer in order to chair a new National Infrastructure Commission. To allow this announcement to be made by George Osborne, and at Tory conference, is quite something. It is, in effect, allowing the Chancellor to present his recruitment as Tory coup. So Osborne gets the drama, but at a cost. The idea of a National Infrastructure Commission is a Labour policy, championed by Ed Miliband  last year. Adonis was keen on all of this,

As the Tory tribe prepares to gather in Manchester, the chatter is about two things: who will succeed David Cameron and what will happen in the EU referendum. These two issues are, obviously, inextricably linked. If Britain votes Out in the EU referendum, a prospect which while still unlikely has become more likely in recent weeks, Cameron is unlikely to be succeeded by someone who campaigned for In—as Fraser points out in the Telegraph today. But, so far, none of the expected leadership candidates have indicated that they will campaign for Out. George Osborne is one of the lead figures in the renegotiation and has always been clear that he

When David Cameron announced that he wouldn’t serve a third term, he made it inevitable that Westminster would spend much of his second term wondering about who would succeed him. Well, in the new Spectator, Nicky Morgan becomes the first Cabinet Minister to make clear that she is interested in standing when Cameron steps down. She says that ‘A lot of it will depend on family’ but makes clear that she believes there needs to be a female candidate in the race and hopes ‘that, in the not too distant future, there will be another female leader of a main Westminster political party’. What I was most struck about when

Not often that I’d be inclined to agree with Syriza, but Yanis Varoufakis had a point last night when he questioned the degree of austerity that has happened in Britain. The Conservatives talk a good game, he said, but George Osborne’s cuts pretty much stopped after year one. I’m going to give a compliment to George Osborne and the Tory government. It’s going to create some consternation in the Tory part. He hasn’t really practiced austerity, he has talked about austerity and it didn’t work. He killed of the nascent recovery after 2009 with the little bit of austerity he did, but he stopped it.” The below figures, drawn from

The Dalai Lama was in London on Monday and met his old friend (and Spectator contributor) Jonathan Mirsky. Time was when he could expect to see the British Prime Minister too – but Beijing was furious that David Cameron met him three years ago and outrageously demanded that the Prime Minister apologise for it. Cameron did what Beijing wanted. He said in public that he had ‘no plans’ to meet the Dalai Lama again. Such was his hunger for Chinese deals, which has been on full inglorious display in George Osborne’s giant kowtow in China this week. Jonathan has known the Dalai Lama for 35 years, and asked him what