George Osborne
George Osborne
George Osborneis a British Conservative Party politician who has been Member of Parliamentfor Tatton since 2001. Under the premiership of David Cameron, from 2010 to 2016, Osborne served as Chancellor of the Exchequer...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth23 May 1971
bed chancellor closest experience four himself item lay leadership lying morning news programme realised ruled shadow thinking turned
I had the closest thing I have ever had to an out-of-body experience lying in bed one morning. I turned on the 'Today' programme and item four on the news was: 'The shadow chancellor has ruled himself out of the leadership.' I lay there thinking that's interesting, then I realised it was me.
I will listen to any argument put to me.
create hard remain rushing stop time
You really have to try hard to create space and, at least for a time, stop the political world from rushing in. The important thing is to remain sane.
believes borrowing fund lead lower money somebody taxes
I'm a Conservative who believes in lower taxes. They lead to a more enterprising economy. But I'm not somebody who believes you can fund lower taxes by borrowing more money.
met studies targets unlike whether
Well can I just say unlike my predecessors, Conservative and Labour, I have set up an independent body that studies whether what I'm saying is true, whether I've met the targets that I set out.
believes benefits
If someone believes that living on benefits is a lifestyle choice, then we need to make them think again.
chancellor country job mind needs prime
What this country needs is a Chancellor with his mind on the job not on inheriting the Prime Minister's crown.
average benefits cope family gets unless work
Unless they have disabilities to cope with, no family should get more from living on benefits than the average family gets from going out to work. No more open-ended chequebook.
blair brown close closer euro hand junior learned life major minister party perhaps problems work
Working in the Major government, we all saw, pretty close at hand - perhaps closer than a junior minister - the problems that the party was facing, ... Those who learned the lessons, and those who didn't. I did. I still for the life of me can't work out why Blair and Brown didn't. The euro would be like an ERM that we couldn't even leave.
party writing california
I did meet Mickey Mouse in California, and he seems to be writing the Labour party's economic policy at the moment.
cutting government way
If you're looking for ways to cut waste in government, you can start with John Prescott.
failure people looks
When you look at the things people are really fed up with, like the collapse of the pension system, like the failure to get money to the frontline of the health service, Gordon Brown is more responsible for that than any other politician including Tony Blair