Why Mr Project Fear (who’s still talking down Britain) must go
FEW can deny that David Cameron has conducted himself with dignity ever since he accepted defeat and announced his decision to stand down as Prime Minister. The same could not be said of George Osborne. The Chancellor at first vanished — even though his presence was sorely needed to reassure the panicking financial markets.
When he did eventually emerge, on Monday morning, it was three days too late and he did himself no favours by saying he would not need an emergency Budget — for it reminded voters he had menacingly threatened one, with savage spending cuts and huge tax hikes, if they voted for Brexit.
There has been some gossip at Westminster that over recent months, the relationship between Osborne and Cameron has been strained. If true, this is not surprising.
Whatever the case, history will remember George Osborne as the man who wrecked the once- so- promising Cameron premiership.
Osborne’s biggest weakness has been to meddle clumsily in countless other areas of government as well as the Treasury. He was Cameron’s chief strategist, closest adviser and — most disastrously — his chief EU negotiator.
Cameron took the fatal decision to hold a referendum on our membership of the EU only after consulting heavily with Osborne (although, it must be conceded, the original idea for a referendum came from former party leader William Hague).
Osborne was then entrusted with the spadework of dealing with ministers from other EU nations and trying to win reforms and concessions that could be sold to the British public and persuade them to vote Remain.
HOWEVER, he and Cameron failed miserably — with the PM coming back from his tour of the EU practically empty-handed. Then, during the campaign itself, Osborne (in alliance with his ally and friend Peter Mandelson) masterminded the cack-handed and dishonest Project Fear strategy.
Shamelessly, he corrupted the Government’s reputation by wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on sending a disgraceful pro-EU propaganda pamphlet to every household in the country and suborned public officials into publishing dodgy dossiers warning of catastrophe if Britain left the EU.
It will take the Treasury a long time to recover its hard-won reputation for integrity after six years of George Osborne as Chancellor.
There is a fascinating paradox, though. Whereas some of their predecessors as PM and Chancellor (for example, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson) ended up at war with each other, Cameron and Osborne had the closest of political alliances. But their joint enterprise was destroyed by Osborne’s many failings. Above all, he was repeatedly unable to keep his promise to bring the nation’s finances back into balance.
Today, after six years of his chancellorship, the national deficit is still running at a terrifying £70 billion a year.
Significantly, Osborne yesterday announced he was abandoning his target to balance the books by 2020. The decision symbolised his failure to reduce the national debt.
Over the years, too, his Budgets have been notorious for embarrassing U-turns and mistakes.
For example, he was forced to abandon plans for £1.3 billion-ayear cuts in disability benefits and he had to cancel his so-called ‘pasty tax’ (which would have added VAT to heated takeaway meals).
Also, he hasn’t solved the huge structural problems facing the British economy. Indeed, one of his greatest errors has been to spend so little time at the Treasury. His primary interest appears to have been political intrigue rather than economic management, leaving him, at best, as a parttime Chancellor.
Indeed, he’s used his Treasury power base as a source of political patronage. Many Tory MPs say that Osborne manipulated his network of supporters to plan his own campaign to succeed Cameron.
This created an intolerable conflict of interest — between the need for rigorous financial management and the demands of Osborne’s private ambition — which has been very damaging to the national interest.
Several Osbornites — for example, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd and Business Secretary Sajid Javid — were promoted.
Both were vocal Remainers in the referendum campaign — though how Javid, a one-time passionate Eurosceptic, looked at himself in the shaving mirror is another matter. Both their careers are now in abeyance.
AMONG Conservative chancellors in living memory, Osborne’s dismal record is matched only by Anthony Barber’s. Is it any coincidence, I wonder, that Barber served under Edward Heath, the Eurofanatic Prime Minister who took Britain into the European Community in 1973.
The next Tory leader must learn from Osborne’s serial mistakes. As a priority, unlike Osborne, the next Chancellor must do the job full-time.
Also, the next Prime Minister must realise the fall of the Cameron/ Osborne leadership, marks the moment of defeat for the modernising faction which seized control of British politics with the arrival of Tony Blair as Labour leader in 1994, and which continued with the brand of Conservatism espoused by Cameron based on the metropolitan liberal values found in Notting Hill and not in the suburbs and provinces.
Depressingly, these modernisers often ignored the views of their party’s traditional supporters and they appointed unelected cronies to key government posts.
Above all, they gave the impression that they regarded politics as a game which should only be played by an elite. Last week’s momentous vote represented a popular revolution against this kind of politics.
Thankfully, I believe, the result is the dawn of a more democratic era — one in which the patrician George Osborne has no part.