George Osborne naked – but is it art?
![Cor - what a big... carrot: The painting of George Osborne symbolising his empty promises by Kaya Mar [Image: www.kayamarart.com].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/141103osbornescarrot.jpg)
Cor – what a big… carrot: The painting of George Osborne symbolising his empty promises by Kaya Mar [Image: www.kayamarart.com].
It seems this was not what George Osborne had in mind when he hosted a boozy awayday in the Cotswolds to boost Tory spirits ahead of the Rochester by-election and the general election.
The Guardian has reported that he was “straight-faced” when former Tory minister Sir Alan Duncan whipped out a naked portrait of him, representing Osborne’s empty policies and failed promises, during a speech at a dinner in a four-star hotel near Chipping Norton.
Apparently this is Osborne’s ‘just desserts’ for offering unfunded tax cuts to the electorate in advance of the election next year.
It seems the event – ostensibly held to strategise against the threat of UKIP – subsequently deteriorated into the usual chaos of any event attended by the Bullingdon hooligans.
The painting is by Kaya Mar, whose images of politicians in the raw can be viewed on his website.
The artist’s website had this to say: “It was reported that a stone-faced George Osborne was furious about being humiliated by Duncan, who went on to make comparisons between Kaya’s typically fat-bottomed naked politicians in his satirical paintings and the Chancellor’s own increasing waistline – a consequence, perhaps, of all those lavish breakfasts, luncheons and dinners paid for by grateful, un-prosecuted bankers and lobbyists working for corporate privateers and plunderers since he wafted into 11 Downing Street all those hundreds of billions of borrowed pounds ago.
“There is, of course, a glaringly obvious subtext to that weekend’s bad-tempered exchanges and barbs; namely the bitter acrimony felt towards David Cameron and George Osborne by a significantly large cadre of back-bench MPs, who have always disliked Cameron’s slick PR style of policy-lite governance which many feel has done the party a great deal of reputational damage.
“The internal blood-letting and back-stabbing … signifies that fiercely partiisan rival camps for the inevitable forthcoming leadership challenge are finally emerging from the shadows, and have now spilled out into the public view.”
The site went on to suggest that the greatest threats to Cameron do not come from Osborne, but from the “polar opposites” represented by London Mayor Boris Johnson and former Education Secretary (recently demoted to Chief Whip) Michael Gove.
“Johnson is hugely popular for his well-honed theatrical ‘bumbling’, which he uses as an effective smokescreen to disguise his enormous ambition to be Prime Minister,” the site claims. “Michael Gove, with his patently ‘British Empire’ beliefs around education, crime and punishment, is well-liked by the reactionary wing of the party, for whom he represents the best chance of putting the UK’s cultural clock back 90 years.”
It may be too much to hope that this resentment will bubble up beyond symbolic gestures like this – at least, before the election – but it seems that the writing, or at least the painting, is on the wall for both George Osborne and David Cameron.
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Oh no, if I read that right, you suggest that Michael Gove would be deputy PM? Oh my God! Boris the Bumbler with Gove the gnome leading this country would be the worst possible outcome for this country. As bad as Camoron and Gidiot!
No – I think Gove is a candidate for leader of the Conservative Party.
Be afraid of Boris Johnson, be VERY afraid. In London he has decided that Planning Regulations, Public Consultation, democratically elected Councils and Counillors have NO SAY AT ALL in his grand schemes…HE WHO MUST BE OBEYED rules sovereign over all, including the Law and Democracy. In South London (which he has shafted since the day he became Mayor) thousands of homes and businesses are being given Compulsory Purchase Orders by Boris “Stalin” Johnson so that his grand schemes can commence: thousands of week time residences for wealthy “Weekend Commuters”. Homes and businesses are not safe from Boris’s Purges and Clearances.
Worse still, South London Council Tax and Business Rate payers have had to pay as much as North Londoners for Boris’s costly Vanity Projects, but has generally got less than 5% of the infrastructure created, from the Olympics, to Boris Bikes, Boris Buses, Boris Brossrail, Boris Cycle Superhighway, Boris Segregated cycle lanes, you name it, we in South London pay half the cost and get less than 5% of each project that the Great Plagiarist manages to pin his name to despite them NOT being his idea.
He has consistently refused to create much or even ANY new transport infrastructure in South London, or chosen the cheapest, least useful scheme while prioritising all spending massively north of the river, and area which is alreay superbly served by all means.
So he is building thousands of new homes here, and issuing thousands of CPOs without any legal consultation or procedure, but worse still failing to provide any new infrastructure to cope with all the Mercedes Benzes which have already started pouring in. Traffic chaos is building daily, and with bus, tube and cycle lanes being few, far between and most sh1t, the new wealthy immigrants have no option BUT to drive their luxury cars everywhere.
Be afraid, be very afraid, he will almost certainly be the next Tory leader, and this supremely arrogant and vain shark will stop at NOTHING to get his way.
he is like one of those African tyrants who spend their country’s entire economy on gilded palaces and cathedrals.
He might only be messing up South London now, but he is flexing his muscles to take on the whole of UK and clear out anyone not up to his standards.
Be very afraid. Warn everyone that the big storm approaches you, we already have it. My EU Assembly member says there are no powers available to stop him, once PM he will cancel Laws except where they suit him.
You have been warned!
I had to think long and hard about opening this post and then was still nearly sick at the “portrait”!
I don’t know what can be done to stop Boris from going back into the HoC, but if he becomes leader, and we end up with a Boris/Farage coalition we may as well shoot ourselves…
I know where I like to shave that carrot
Shave?
Worse than anything by Henry Fuseli.