“When I was chancellor I was very focused on unemployment numbers, GDP numbers, trying to get the British economy turned around,”...

...“I guess I assumed that you’ve got to get the economy going and then people see the benefits and it’s good for people to be in work. I didn’t understand that people want more than just that.

“They also want to feel that their views are understood and their voices listened to and that the system is working for them.

“My political generation was brought up on The West Wing ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ view of politics. What’s interesting is we’ve moved more to a politics of identity than a politics of the economy.

“But Conservatives are naturally better placed than the left to have a deeper understanding of identity and issues of nationality.”

Osborne was too focused on political plotting against his enemies to give a damn about the economy.

How did he think the economy was improving when people weren't seeing an improvement in their living standards?

Well, it proves he is deluded. How can he claim to have been good for the economy when there are now about a million food bank uses per year and he missed his very important targets?

As for his final comment, the mind boggles.

Being deluded is a popular choice for politicians these days

He could be on his way out in 2020 unless he finds a safe seat . Tatton is being abolished & merging into Altricham & Tatton Park , looks like he will be involved in a fight with Graham Brady to be chosen as Conservative candidate

Is he being serious? Hard to tell with these loons.

There is a purpose to employment, and it's not to enrich an elite at the expense of the worker and of the treasury.


He failed on the economy. Failed on many people's personal economy, the only economy that matters.

This is the guy who cut funding for social care for the frail elderly and disabled to local councils by 40 per cent - 200,000 of them lost access to state support in England during his time in office - while at the same time providing bailouts and subsidies galore to bankers and developers to thank them for all their donations to the Tory party.

There really is a special place reserved in hell for politicians like George Osborne.

I don't believe him.

The Tory focus (during the coalition years) was dominated by a 4 year General Election campaign against Ed Miliband's Face.

When that started to unravel (the strategy......not Ed's Face) with Hundreds of completely seperate polls all showing a hung Parliament.....they changed tack and sent the dodgy buses to 31 Lib Dem Marginals. Allegedly.....

Yes, the Conservatives really did buy the election.

It just shows you how out of touch he is with average people if he believes that people voted to leave the EU did so due to identity politics.
What an utter moron, that's what many people are trying to get away from.

He just casually assumes that this is the case, and therefore just believes it, so as far as he's concerned it's fact.

The problem with people like Osbourne in their ivory towers is that they think that looking at a spreadsheet with numbers on is all they need to know to inform then. They can't see things in terms of real people and how the economy directly relates to them. He will think that prosperity for the country is simply measured by how well big multinational companies are doing and somehow thinks that means that the public must be feeling the benefits of those profits too.
Seriously, people like him really don't seem to have a clue. He doesn't see people, he just sees numbers. I'd bet that there are many in government who have this kind of autistic view of other people.

Because all his 'chums' were doing very nicely thanks, and with him being a Tory they are the only people who count.

I think it's a huge mistake to see things in terms of Tories being bad and Labour good. This will apply to many in Labour as well. It has probably always been like this no matter what party they belong to. We have to burden some of the blame too for not taking these people to task over the last few years. After the crash in 2008 it was said that the banking system needed to be reformed, banking and big business shouldn't be bailed out with the tax payer footing the bill. But people just got complacent by forgetting about it over time and just let it go at the time when we should have been more vocal and insistent.

I honestly don't believe "Tory bad Labour good" I was not afraid to be critical of Labour when in government (in fact every one of the three protest demonstrations I have attended in my life, were against Labour governments)
I certainly don't believe they walk on water, but as someone who has been around for a bit, I have noticed that while every Labour government I can remember were FAR from perfect, every Tory government I can recall had a distinct feeling of intentional spitefulness about it towards the less well off and less fortunate, while at the same time always looking after the better off.

I'm sure you're right, but though I can't stand Osborne I can't quite see why people are criticising him for saying that he got it wrong. Politicians on the right have thought like that for years: make it easier for businesses to make money and everyone else will be better off too. Now, surely, he's saying something that many of us have thought all along, that it doesn't work like that. It won't change anything but he's right, isn't he?

edit: actually, to be fair he is still wrong because he seems to believe that his policies were correct, but people didn't realise it.

I just can't believe these people are that stupid. So they must be a bunch of thieves.

Much of the public are that stupid, stupid to believe that helping the rich get richer by direct government action is a wise move.

The only way the rich should get richer is if everyone else does first. And that, consequentially by a "trickle up", there is an enriching of those at the top.

Only by innovation and effort should business get at the public money. The effort to woo the public.

-------------
And this works of course. Innovation and hard work is wealth. Wealth allows the provision of public services so essential for the public to have a disposable income to spend in the first place.

So this incompetent goon is back looking refreshed. Shame!

Wages growth had restarted, employment was at historic highs, tax and living wage changes were improving incomes at the bottom, the defecit was back in saner territory, and the economy was growing faster than anyone else, in a comparable country, was managing. Osborne had done a good job.

His problem was that this was happening a year late, so he had too little feel good factor in place for the referendum. They had also built up the idea of more austerity to provide a contrast with Labour's spending plans, that then had to be junked. They should have waited a yearwith the eferendum, and piled on some tax cuts and spending - but that risked more bad headlines on ithe refugee front. .

He also hadn't found an answer to the fundamental problem- that no established modern economy has been able to grow fast enough to meet the growing demands of its health service, other government spending, and a growing elderly population. The voters chose to blame this basic reality on immigrants, but its a problem with no real world answer. Printing 500 billion , a la Corbyn, isn't an answer ,and it just shows how Labour hasn't come up with any answer either. You can't spend 4% more a year on health, when the economy is growing by 2% , and Brexit, by reducing growth to nearer 1 %, just makes the problem worse.

I imagine he'll be remembered for his focus on the budget deficit yet he never managed to hit a reduction target.

The masses can only get richer by increasing their producivity. If you don't produce more, you cant make more for doing it. If you put up wages for the same output, the price just rises - and you get the 1970s situation - of workers striking to try and leap frog over other worker's pay deals. That ends in inflation, and more unemployment. Playing around with higher taxes, just decreases productivity, as there's less incentive to invest, and the people with most ability, can leave for anywhere else. Traditional jobs have little scope left for productivity improvements - beyond outsourcing overseas, or automating, when labour becomes uncompetitive - so increasing wages just hastens unemployment, or leaves you with more expensive goods in the shops that eats up the higher wages.

Trickle down works- because more people with large incomes, start demanding services that cost more. And the people providing those services, then demand more services . As most people now provide services, and the old working class has mostly died except in some residual pockets, , most of the population is now dependant on there being enough people around with teh money to provide demand for their services - most of which are inessential .

The problem with trickle down, is when the money is too concentrated in too few hands ,and they bank it, and don't spend it - and in those areas that don't have anyone much working in the new industries- that generate the money to demand services. The first problem is difficult - because if you try and tax those people, they will just move elsewhere. The answer to the second issue, is to set up new centres that have the critical mass of skills, to attract new high paying jobs , which then spawn service jobs - that's the Northern and Midland's powerhouse. idea . The electoral problem with that is that you can only have so many cities with a critical mass of talent nearby, and the working class - who have stayed in remote seaside and ex industrial areas - are going to wait a long time before its sensible for anyone to invest there, or to try and provide a service no one can afford.

He gave a refreshingly honest account of himself in the interview.

Osborne - "I was too focused on the economy"

No, Osby, the real truth is that you didn't give a toss for ordinary working people (let alone the ill, disabled, poor and unemployed). Your sole aim was to preserve the perks and privileges of the ruling Eton/Bullingdon toff millionaire classes and to hell with everyone one.

Former Chancellor attacks Theresa May for 'sitting out' the EU referendum and attacks her stance on immigration

Food bank use started en masse under Labour.

Winning the GE in 2015 was hardly a failure.

Are you deliberately telling porkies or are you just inventing things? 2010 food bank usage was about 60,000, now it is about a million.