by Panda Paws
It is unusual for parents to gaze adoringly at their new born baby and decide yes let’s call him Gideon, as it means the “destroyer”, but perhaps George Osborne’s parents were gifted with great foresight. A recent Munguin’s Republic poll had 59% of readers selecting the current Chancellor as the next Tory leader and thus in my opinion the next Prime Minister. That does not mean he is universally popular however.
“George Osborne is a man who has overseen the slowest post-crisis recovery in history, the longest sustained decline in average wages in history, a shocking decline in comparative productivity with the other G7 economies, and the continued existence of the vast UK trade deficit. Yet there he was blustering away as if he's some kind of amazing guardian of the economy, rather than a hopelessly under-qualified chancer who has somehow been given a mandate by just 24% of the public to continue his hopelessly inept and often venal economic stewardship for another five years.”
And who can forgot him being booed at the Paralympics whilst he grinned like a Cheshire cat on cocaine (allegedly).
The privately educated, heir to a baronetcy and Bullingdon alumnus resident of Number 11 has been accused of not understanding the lives of ordinary people. However he has recently lost of lot of weight on the 5:2 diet and thus has shared experience with those affected by his benefit cuts and future tax credit cuts as they also don’t eat for days on end. This is not the only change in his appearance recently. A severe haircut has left him looking like a Roman Imperator though without their charm and compassion.
So what will he destroy then?
As someone even more ideological than Cameron and who wept at Thatcher’s funeral, he certainly wants to destroy public goods such as a welfare state and the public provision of water, mail, et al with such services provided by private, profit making companies.
He’ll herald this as a low tax state (meaning income and capital taxes) but the sting in the tale/tail will be when you realise that everything your tax paid for in the past is now dearer and poorer quality now.
If you are a low or middle income earner the tax cuts are unlikely to compensate for this. He’ll destroy the social cohesion of the UK and frankly a few weeks of his “leadership” is likely to destroy the UK itself because I doubt his vision of a perfect society matches that of the majority in Scotland. The problem will be how much damage he will have done to the Scottish economy before we can flee from his influence.
That said, a Brexit under Cameron may render the whole point moot if Scotland has voted to remain in the EU.
Jeremy Hunt wants the British to be more like the Chinese. Given that a No vote last September has resulted in five years of full fat Toryism. I think we have long since been cursed to live in interesting times.
