Wegg-Blog

mood: amused

It is less than a week since I predicted here that George Osborne's love of political gossip might get him into trouble.  I am sure that he is now regretting his chat with Martin Ivens of the Sunday Times when he revealed details of an alleged conversation that took place over dinner with Peter Mandelson last August (I understand that their discussions actually focussed on the challenges of turning round political parties and the reluctance of the Tory party's activist base to accept change.)

Anyway,  today Nat Rothschild, who was the host of the dinner, has moved things on with a letter to The Times with some pretty explosive revelations, more can be read about them here.

My observation on these events is simple.  George loves to play the game, and on recent form he is good at it, rising to the heights of Shadow Chancellor with relative ease.  Everything for him is a game of political chess, a tactical policy move here, a strategic friendship there, a word in this columnist's ear and a lunch with that captain of industry.  Always trading on insights, gossip, wit and considerable intelligence.  Yet, might the same skills which have enabled him to climb the greasy pole be the same attributes that bring him down?

With the Tory press turning on Osborne's failure to successfuly pitch his party's response to the financial crisis I suspect that his parliamentary colleagues may be dumping shares in Osbornes as quickly as traders shipped RBS, HBOS and Barclay's stocks in recent weeks!

The Prime Minister shares little love for George, they fell out over a phone call some time ago, the details of which I cannot remember, I would not be surprised if the PM weaves this issue into his comments at Prime Minister's Question Time tomorrow.