My George Osborne YouTube Video Again

Since I spent a whole evening doing this video back in the Autumn, I thought I'd bring it to everyone's attention again.

Enjoy (unless you are a Tory)

One thing is clear from the Tory blogs, Osborne did not do well in the Chancellor's debate

Looking through the main Tory blogs tonight, not one posting has been done after the Chancellors debate on Channel Four.

Now if Osborne had done well or even slightly well, the Tories would have been crowing about it. Their silence speaks volumes about Osborne's performance.

"Flipping" George Osborne saves £55000 in tax

The man who wants to be the man in charge of the country's tax at after the next general election is accused by the lib Dems today of "flipping" his second home in order to save £55k in tax.

The link to the story is HERE.

If true, it means David Cameron will have to show whether his newly found conversion to open government and decency amongst Tory MPs is confined only to the old guard and those Tories he does not get on with or whether it extends to his inner circle.

Cameron on Tax said more about Cameron on Osborne

What an odd sight to see David Cameron making an announcement yesterday on tax which was based on what the Tories would do if they were in power now, not noticing that they are not actually in power now.

But more odd was the the shadow chancellor, Gideon Osborne sat on meekly watching as David Cameron made an announcement on taxation.

It spoke volumes about what the Tories think of Osborne.

Osborne's last ill thought out hurrah

There is a general unwritten political convention that opposition party spokesmen don't talk down the economy or make statements, often based on their privileged position and inside knowledge, that will damage employment, sterling, and the economy as a whole.

A few months ago the Conservatives has a real dig at Alistair Darling for stating the obvious when he said the recession would be worse than expected. Strangely though, George Osborne's memory seems very patchy because not only does his recollection of his holiday Corfu differ from the one his host recalled, despite him leading the criticism of the Chancellor a few short weeks ago, he has now broken the convention I mentioned earlier by seemingly talking down sterling in what many are saying is a last desperate attempt to prove his relevance to the Tory Party.

Perhaps as others write, it is a last hurrah in an attempt to head off his replacement by Ken Clarke.

Three questions for Gideon Osborne ?

1) If you made a mistake, are you now admitting that you did do something wrong ?

2) If you were not fundraising for the Tories, why are you resigning from your role as a Tory fundraiser now ?

3) Why call yourself George when your real name is Gideon ?

Palling around with Oligarchs

Jonathan Dimbleby made a good point this morning on Andrew Marr's programme on the BBC.

He made the point that whoever you are, and particularly if you are aiming to be Chancellor or if you are an EU commissioner, if you sup with the Russians, do so with a very long spoon.

Dimbleby remarked that the Russian Oligarch that Gideon Osborne and Mandelson were "palling around with" was someone who came to prominence because of his family links to Boris Yeltsin and as a result of the "Aluminium Wars", where rival aluminium magnates were bumped off in a 1930's style gangster film, leaving just a handful of people left to take control.

Whatever the accusation against Mandelson and Osborne, the biggest question ought to be what on earth were they doing having repeated meetings with a Russian Oligarch with, lets put it nice, an interesting history.

I always say that you can judge a person by the company they keep.

Poor Gideon Osborne - The posh boy who does not understand social etiquette

The whole scandal involving Gideon Osborne taking luxury holidays with billionaires and allegedly seeking donations has come about purely because despite his privilege and family, he failed to understand basic social etiquette.

The press have been reporting that amongst the yachting set, the saying "what happens on the yacht, stays on the yacht", yet as soon as Peter Mandelson was appointed to the cabinet, Gideon Osborne couldn't help but break that rule and let the press know that Mandelson had "dripped pure poison about Brown" in to his ear.

So once he showed his lack of class and his inability to keep his mouth shut he opened the way for others to talk about him.

For a posh boy he has shown a real lack of class.

Tories bottle it over council tax

I'm tired and busy so will keep this brief.

The Tories had a chance today to put down a marker on Council Tax. Everyone knows council tax is unfair, regressive and is a system that is failing both in terms of the way people think about it and in terms of its fairness, so the Tories could have announced a full review or that they would look to replace it with a fairer system of their own. But no, instead they have offered a bribe to voters to put up with the tax.

The truth is that a council tax freeze might offer some respite, but it ignores the fact that Council tax is a crap way of collecting local government taxes.

Tories propose tax cuts but give no explanation of how this will be paid for

The argument thrown at David Cameron, quite correctly, is what would they do in government ?

Nobody seems to know, and even when Cameron proposes something it is more of a general idea than a real policy initiative. So when the Tories chose today to announce that under Tory plans 5p would be chopped from the price of a litre of petrol, we might be excused for being a bit cynical.

How will this £3bn pledge be paid for ? Just silence on this from the Tories.

Now given the bad publicity the Tories have had over the resignation of the deputy mayor of London, am I being cynical in thinking they've announced this all rather quickly in order to bury the bad news ?

George Osborne eaten alive on Radio Five live

I've always thought of George Osborne as n over promoted rich boy who lacks any real credibility and gravitas, and this was shown in very great detail today on Radio Five this morning when he was talking about Tory plans to tax alcopops and premium beers at a higher rate.

George Osborne starting explaining how his plans were proven because of their success in other countries, with him naming Norway as one such example. Then he, he walked in to a trap of his own making. The BBC interviewer, obviously aware of Mr Osborne's tendency to mention Norway as had obviously done a bit of research in to Norway, in then listed to Mr Osborne exactly what they do in Norway to support efforts to reduce drinking on top of simply taxing premium beers at a higher rate. The things that Norway also does includes setting an age limit of 20 for people wanting to buy spirits and banning the sale wine, beers and spirits in convenience stores, garages and supermarkets. The interviewer want on listing all the other things Norway does, and in response George Osborne had no proper answer or response other than to again repeat the same points he had made at the beginning of the interview.

Very shallow and hopelessly out of his depth were the first thoughts that came in to my head.

Is this why the Tory front bench were not keen to call for Hain's resignation ?

There has been a strange gap developing in the last few days between Tory Bloggers who have been calling for Peter Hain's head and Tory MP's who have been much calmer and less willing to demand his resignation. I thought, perhaps naively that this was a new more balanced Conservative party being fairer to Labour than Labour had been to the Tories in the last years of Tory rule. But I appear to be wrong.

This morning it turns out that Gideon Osborne has had problems with donations received to run his office. The scale of Mr Osborne's problems can be seen when the donations he has properly failed to disclose are five times that of Peter Hain, calling just short of half a million pounds. I wondered if this was why the Tory front bench have been so cool on demanding Hain's head on a plate.

The donation problems though do raise an important point. Are the rules about donations clear enough ? After all, both Hain and Osborne are not stupid men, so for them or their teams to make such seemingly obvious mistakes does lead me to ask if the House of Commons are offering clear and swift advice and whether new advice should be issued. It is clear that Osborne sought advice but was not given the support from the proper officials that MP's should get. As to Hain's "oversight", it remains to be seen. However it worries me that two bright men can get caught out like this.