‘Treacherous’ Osborne sent to Coventry
GEORGE Osborne has been ‘sent to Coventry’ by members of the Cabinet for his vicious attacks on Theresa May and the Government.
A senior Conservative source said several ministers were no longer on speaking terms with the former chancellor.
Mr Osborne, who was sacked by Mrs May last summer, has used his position as editor of the Evening Standard to run editorials criticising her policies.
He is said to have told staff he would not rest until the Prime Minister was ‘chopped up in bags in my freezer’.
Several former Cabinet friends and allies, including Sir Patrick McLoughlin, have now cut all ties with him in protest. ‘He has been sent to Coventry,’ said a friend of the party chairman. ‘Patrick, who was close to George, isn’t taking his phone calls any more, and he is not the only one.
‘It is hard to overstate the depth of anger and betrayal within the party over the way George has behaved. Everyone accepts that he’s a newspaper editor now and has a right to be critical.
‘But it’s gone way beyond that – he seems to be bent on trying to destroy the Government, and his attacks on Theresa May are despicable.’
Mr Osborne could barely contain his glee on election night in June as exit polls showed Mrs May was on course to lose her majority. Days later he described her as a ‘dead woman walking’ and suggested she could be forced out within a week. Mr Osborne has also used the newspaper to rail against Brexit.
Tory MP Nadine Dorries yesterday called for Mr Osborne to be banned from next month’s Conservative Party conference. She said she had asked Tory chief whip Gavin Williamson to intervene following reports that Mr Osborne had ‘expressed a desire to see a woman, the Prime Minister, murdered’.
Her colleague Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘George Osborne is becoming more bitter than Ted Heath, he’s disgracing himself.’
Mr Osborne is due to attend the party conference in Manchester to address a meeting discussing his Northern Powerhouse project.
The former chancellor has made no comment on the latest row. But his friend Lord Finkelstein said Mr Osborne’s reaction stemmed from the humiliation of his sacking.
The former chancellor is said to have been so shocked that he left his dinner uneaten on the table in his Downing Street flat as he dashed out of a back door.
Lord Finkelstein added: ‘I didn’t agree with the way the Government dealt with him. It was always quite likely to produce this reaction and in politics you reap what you sow.’
‘Dead woman walking’