Tag Archives: George Osborne

George Osborne’s ‘confetti’ incident: what a lot of fuss over such a little thing!

Unbelievable: this innocent sprinkling of confetti at George Osborne’s wedding has been likened by former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls to the murder of Jo Cox.

The furore stoked by politicians and the mass media over a smiling pensioner throwing confetti over George Osborne at his wedding must defy belief.

Confetti-throwing is a well-loved tradition that one may usually expect to see after any wedding ceremony.

Ah, but this confetti was orange, meaning it – and the lady who threw it – were instantly linked with climate protesters Just Stop Oil. And they’ve continued to be linked to that organisation, even after it denied any connection:

It said: “The lady who threw confetti in Bruton yesterday was upholding a tradition that is common across many cultures. We absolutely defend the right for people to throw confetti (of whatever colour) at weddings and other celebrations.

“If it was a form of protest – which is yet to be established – we applaud it and thank the person concerned. It was peaceful and not especially disruptive, but got massive media attention for Just Stop Oil’s demand.”

But it continued: “However, as much as we applaud the use of orange confetti at this wedding, we were not responsible.”

That seems as straightforward as it gets.

So why is the incident still being linked to the protest group, and why are politicians from the Labour Party getting on the bandwagon to support George Osborne who, together with David Cameron, is the most directly responsible for the austerity policies that have been destroying the British way of life since 2010?

Here’s Rachel Reeves – who, as Shadow Chancellor, should be intimately familiar with Osborne’s economic recklessness – ignoring the fact that if it weren’t for demonstrations of protest at highly-publicised events, she might not have the right to vote today, let alone the right to be a member of Parliament who’s eyeing the second-highest office in the land:

What are the “better ways” that Labour is using to tackle the climate emergency, after party leader Keir Starmer cancelled its environmental policy and told us all that he hates “tree-huggers”? It doesn’t have any – that are visible to This Writer.

How about former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls who, as a co-presenter of ITV’s Good Morning Britainshouted down guest Owen Jones for daring to point out that Osborne’s austerity policies led to the deaths of many, many people:

Did you notice how Daily Mail columnist and GB News presenter Andrew Pierce tried to stop Jones being heard when he realised what the subject would be? “You’re losing the room, Owen” – he was saying the other people in the TV studio would not be interested in the mass deaths of many people who could have been watching their show today if not for the Tory policy that he (Pierce) supported then and probably supports now.

And then Balls opened his big mouth so Jones could not get a word in edgeways. And Jones – controversial though he may be – was the one in the right. Balls defeated his own aim by overtalking him; clearly the former Shadow Chancellor wanted to defend his former political enemy (leading us to question whether Osborne was ever really Ed Balls’s political enemy) and didn’t want the opposing view to be heard.

And wasn’t Ed Balls invited to George Osborne’s wedding?

Not satisfied with what he had already done, Balls made himself even more ridiculous by equating the practice of throwing confetti at a wedding with the murder of the late Labour MP Jo Cox. “Cremant Communarde”‘s comment is pertinent:

Again, Owen Jones was in the right: “It belittles [the death of Jo Cox at the hands of a far-right-wing extremist] to conflate the two.”

You have to question why Balls tried.

Was it because, as Aaron Bastani of Novara Media tweeted, “We have a political and media elite with no sense of proportion or common sense”?

He continued: “How can you start talking about Jo Cox in the same breath as someone throwing confetti? You can think both are wrong, fine, but this is obscene.”

Valid point.

Over on LBC, Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy – in his actual day job (clearly representing his constituents is only for spare change) – bemoaned the fact that some confetti may have fallen on Osborne’s (latest) bride, Thea Rogers.

He considered it “unacceptable” that Ms Rogers (Mrs Osborne?) was subjected to this wedding-day tradition. Go figure.

And Pamela Fitzpatrick makes a much more valid point: Lammy was defending somebody who introduced measures that killed tens of thousands of people – hundreds of thousands, if you go with Owen Jones’s figures.

Those people can’t have weddings, or confetti; they no longer have lives. That is what’s unacceptable, in any matter concerning George Osborne and his ilk.

Why have we been subjected to this display of outrage by some of right-wing Labour’s most prominent flapping mouths? Is it because not only Ed Balls but also his wife, current Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, was at the wedding?

Knowing this, isn’t the real issue whether any of these right-wing Labour luminaries were ever really opposed to Osborne and his austerity policies?

To This Writer, what’s unacceptable in this situation is a current or former Opposition MP socialising with a person who is responsible for such mass death. As a protest symbol, orange confetti isn’t nearly strong enough.

And there are other controversies that the above has masked. How about this one?

So this One-Rule-For-Us Tory was happy to inflict poverty on millions, while gracing his then-paramour with an enormous pay rise.

And then there’s the so-called “poison pen” email that landed the night before the wedding. I won’t quote it here – look it up yourself – but it suggests that not only was Osborne romancing Ms Rogers while he was still married to someone else but also that he is a serial love cheat who had physical relationship with other women while he was with her.

If it’s true, then coupled with everything else we are presented with the history of a creature who deserves nothing but revulsion and rejection from any right-minded person. One questions the judgement of a Labour Party whose leaders defend him.


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Why is the field Starmer bought for his parent’s rescue donkeys a scandal, but Osborne’s paddock wasn’t?

Keir Starmer: at least this time he has reason to look relaxed – he hasn’t done anything wrong.

Let’s get one thing clear: Keir Starmer has been a disaster (so far) as leader of the Labour Party.

It comes as a relief, therefore, to learn that he is at least a good son.

Using his own money, Starmer bought a field near his parents’ home, so his mother could look after rescued donkeys. This was before he was a member of Parliament, when he was working in the legal profession.

Apparently the land is now worth “up to £10 million”, but he bought it in 1996 when it is likely to have been worth a considerable amount less.

And reporters in the Mail on Sunday want us to believe that Starmer is set to sell this Green Belt land to the local council – for housing:

The claim is false. Even the MoS article features a quote from a Labour spokesperson, saying that the field is not for sale – but a strip of land next to his late parents’ house is being sold, in accordance with his father’s will.

Contrast this with George Osborne and his paddock.

Remember that?

I wrote about it in 2012, as follows:

“Osborne – who is, let’s remember, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and therefore should know the rules extremely well – included the mortgage for a paddock in his taxpayer-funded expenses.

“He bought a farmhouse in Cheshire, along with the neighbouring land, for £455,000 in 2000, before he became an MP – but then, between 2003 and 2009, he claimed up to £100,000 in expenses to cover mortgage interest payments on both the land and the building. The mortgages were interest-only. After 2003, he never paid a penny himself.

“When he re-mortgaged in 2005, he increased the amount to £480,000 – again on an interest-only basis – to cover the intial purchase costs and £10,000 for repairs. He was using public money to claw back his outlay on the property, so from then on, none of the money paid on that building or land was paid by Mr Osborne. It all came from the taxpayer.

“During the MPs’ expenses scandal of 2009 we learned that he had “flipped” his second home allowance onto the property and increased the mortgage. What we didn’t know was that the expenses payments were not just for the house, but for the paddock as well; it is registered separately with the Land Registry.

“Osborne sold the house and the land – both of which are now firmly established as having been funded with your money, not his – last year, for £1 million. That’s more than double the original price. He has pocketed that money; the taxpayer won’t get any of it back.”

Osborne did not need this building or the adjoining land to discharge his Parliamentary duties, nor did he pay back anything like the amount he claimed, when he was found to have overclaimed for mortgage interest on the farmhouse (and only the farmhouse).

The difference is clear.

Osborne used public funds to pocket hundreds of thousands of pounds. Starmer used his own money to help his mother.

And the Mail on Sunday attacked Starmer!

Perhaps this is because Osborne is a Conservative and could therefore do no wrong, as far as the Tory rags are concerned. Starmer, on the other hand, despite being practically a Red Tory, is Labour and therefore a target.

Fortunately the Twitterati feel otherwise:

That’s the truth of it; this is just a prelude.

Who knows what they’ll throw at him after the Covid-19 crisis finally subsides?

That’s likely to be a long way off yet (because the Tories are busily turning coronavirus into the biggest massacre of UK citizens ever to happen in peacetime).

But Starmer’s record as Labour leader suggests that this merely means they will have plenty of ammunition by then.

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While Starmer bends backwards for right-wing Jewish groups, the Tories are making anti-Semitic jokes

Gross anti-Semitism: but because it was commissioned by a Conservative, it gets a free pass from the right-wing Jewish establishment.

Reality check, people.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has humiliatingly genuflected before leaders of right-wing Jewish groups that support the Israeli government, promising to enact all their demands to turn him into their sockpuppet, in a video conference.

In response, he was told he has done more in four days of leadership than former leader Jeremy Corbyn had managed in four years (even though he hasn’t actually done anything yet).

The leaders of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust and the Jewish Labour Movement managed to conveniently forget that Starmer has appointed a supporter of a genuine anti-Semite into his shadow cabinet (Rachel Reeves).

It all keeps the focus on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, you see.

Meanwhile, Tory George Osborne, who now edits the Evening Standard, has commissioned and published a genuinely anti-Semitic cartoon – and nobody in the organisations mentioned above has had anything to say about it.

And the silence in the mass media has been deafening too.

The cartoon shows Starmer welcoming Ed Miliband back into the shadow cabinet. Miliband is portrayed with a hook nose (that he hasn’t got), holding a bacon sandwich dripping with a red substance that could be ketchup, but may more likely be representative of blood (some have seen this to be indicative of the “blood libel” anti-Semitic trope.

Osborne is proud of it:

Martin Odoni in The Critique Archives has been less than silent.

He wrote: “Come on, BoD, come on, David Collier, come on, Jonathan Hoffman, and all you other self-righteous Zionist squealers cheaply using Jewish identity as a cover story for Israeli political gain. We know that the Evening Standard is a Tory newspaper, and therefore an ally of yours. But if you ever want to retain the slightest remnant of credibility, you need to protest this more loudly than any deed by anyone you have attacked in the Labour Party over the last five years.

“Because unlike almost all of the deeds you have attacked, this is absolutely explicit. It is an outrageous racial caricature, by the very standards you have insisted on imposing. You cannot apply them selectively.”

He’s not alone:

(The mural reference refers to a piece of work that Jeremy Corbyn once defended, before seeing it. After seeing it, he retracted his comment. Some of the saga is recounted here.)

We’ll be waiting a long time for the Bod, JLC, JLM, CST and all the named champions of the fight against (Labour)(alleged) anti-Semitism to say anything, I reckon!

But what do you think?

Source: George Osborne publishes and promotes anti-Semitic cartoon. Deathly silence from BoD and the media | TheCritique Archives

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The Tories could end austerity now – but you can bet they’ll use Brexit fears as an excuse not to

“End austerity? Me? But Brexit!” That’s what Philip Hammond would say.

The Conservative government could use £15 billion to end austerity policies after a surprise boost to the public finances – but you’d be a fool to think that will happen.

That’s the view of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, whose director Paul Johnson urged Philip Hammond to make good on the promises the Tories have been making for the past few months.

You see, it’s all very well saying austerity is over, but if the services the Tories have destroyed haven’t been restored, then it isn’t.

But even Mr Johnson admitted the Tories would be in a better position to boost public services if not for uncertainty over Brexit.

“There is a consensus that the economy would have been about 2 per cent bigger had the Brexit vote not occurred,” he said.

“In those circumstances the deficit would have been smaller still and the fiscal room for manoeuvre greater. The end of austerity could already have been rather more decisively with us.”

The IFS warned that the chancellor’s Spring Statement deferred crucial spending decisions in areas such as social care, public service funding and benefits which will put him under pressure to raise taxes further down the line.

The Treasury said on Wednesday that the “headroom” built up by the chancellor could go towards government priorities such as keeping tax low, reducing debt, public service spending and capital investment, so long as it is not soaked up coping with a no-deal Brexit.

Of course we should remember that George Osborne (remember him?) said on becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2010 that the public finances would be restored to health by 2015 – nearly four years ago.

We may reasonably conclude only one thing:

Tories will use any excuse to continue squeezing public spending – they’ve used a fictitious crisis in the public finances; they’re currently using Brexit. It will be something else in the future.

Source: Government has enough money to end austerity if it wants to, IFS report concludes | The Independent


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Osborne admits: Labour did NOT cause the Great Recession

George Osborne.

Took him long enough, didn’t it?

He also admits that the Tories had promised to match Labour’s spending plans, in an interview with Andrew Neil for The Spectator‘s Coffee House Shots on October 12 (they went back on that promise when they took office in 2010).

Here’s the relevant clip:

If you’d prefer the full interview, it’s here:


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Osborne admits: Labour did NOT cause the Great Recession

George Osborne.

Took him long enough, didn’t it?

He also admits that the Tories had promised to match Labour’s spending plans, in an interview with Andrew Neil for The Spectator‘s Coffee House Shots on October 12 (they went back on that promise when they took office in 2010).

Here’s the relevant clip:

If you’d prefer the full interview, it’s here:


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Latest Grenfell revelations are shocking – especially relating to George Osborne

[Image from Political Scrapbook.]

The headline news here is that George Osborne, as the newly-appointed editor of the Evening Standard, ordered the paper’s reporters not to take a hard line when reporting the fire at Grenfell Tower in Kensington.

It seems he was worried that the budget cuts he imposed as Chancellor of the Exchequer might be linked to the deaths of mostly-poor Londoners.

So his line was to call on people to show “unity in grief” and to raise funds for victims, according to a profile of him in Esquire magazine, reported in Political Scrapbook.

As a professional news reporter, This Writer finds his behaviour utterly unacceptable if this is true. It is the news reporter’s job to be impartial; to report the facts as they are known.

That is what Osborne himself said he would do when he took over as the Standard‘s editor:

Instead it seems he has been doing himself just as many favours as he could.

Incidentally, the line taken by Osborne and the Standard – that everybody should express their unity and not go anywhere near discussing the causes of the fire – was adopted by many right-wing reporters, commentators and members of the public, who then tried to shame the rest of us for bothering to point out that there were political reasons for the disaster.

I think I’m still correct in saying This Site was the first to make these connections. It would be nice to see those who criticised me for doing so admit that it was their vitriol that was inappropriate – but I shan’t hold my breath waiting for it.

In other news, fire chiefs have called for sprinklers to be retrofitted into tower blocks in response to the Grenfell disaster:

In fact, residents had been campaigning for sprinklers to be fitted for years before the fire happened. But London fire commissioner Dany Cotton is absolutely right to use the disaster to press for action now.

The BBC has revealed that a series of tower block blazes in at least the last eight years meant it was known in the construction industry that polyethylene cladding panels were unsafe – so why were they still used on Grenfell Tower after this became common knowledge? Here’s the report:

The report also suggested that, knowing the risks, someone made a decision to swap non-combustible cladding for cheaper – but flammable – cladding instead, in order to save just £60,000:


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George Osborne reveals murderous tendencies – but the responses to his words are the killers

George Osborne: His words are increasingly like those of a serial killer.

What a joy to be discussing Conservatives at war.

It seems George Osborne has told Esquire magazine he will not rest until Theresa May is “chopped up in bags in my freezer”.

This comes after he previously described her as a “dead woman walking”.

It would be frightening indeed, if there was any fear to be had from the man This Writer once described in his former job as the “Chancer of the Exchequer”.

Now? He’s just a figure of fun. Check out some of the responses on Twitter:

Most of us weren’t. But of those of us who voted Conservative in 2010 and 2015 – especially in the Tatton constituency – perhaps questions should be asked!

If any remark was a killer, though, it was this:

Nice one, Rachael – definitely a comment that’s not to be sniffed at.


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Cameron and Osborne have fleeced us all – and are talking about it on the after-dinner circuit

The last laugh: David Cameron and George Osborne failed the UK bitterly – but succeeded in making a fortune for themselves.

This Writer agrees with Jeremy Corbyn: “The Tories have spent 6 years lining the pockets of their friends & as soon as they can they line their own pockets.”

Also, isn’t it interesting that George Osborne’s speech is at an event by HSBC – the bank of tax avoidance – while David Cameron’s is at an event by PwC – the accountants of tax avoidance?

David Cameron and George Osborne are being paid tens of thousands of pounds each to make speeches for leading financial institutions at the World Economic Forum.

The former Prime Minister and Chancellor, who this time last year were leading figures at the forum, will this year only attend the fringes of the event held in Davos, including a number of parties and private dinners.

Mr Cameron is to give a speech at a dinner held by accounting firm PwC, while Mr Osborne will appear at an HSBC event for 20 clients.

The fees charged by them are understood to be “in the high five figures”, plus travel and accommodation expenses.

Source: David Cameron and George Osborne cash in with big-money Davos visit

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Labour research shows how deep the cuts to Universal Credit will be for working families

Look at that smug grin: Osborne knows he got away with misleading the public [Image: Reuters].

Look at that smug grin: Osborne knows he got away with misleading the public [Image: Reuters].

Gideon – that is, George Osborne – really is a creepy little liar, isn’t he?

He told everybody, in his Autumn Statement, that he was scrapping his cuts to working people’s incomes. In fact he offered only a partial reversal.

The headlines went out, people heard him say “the simplest thing to do is not to phase these changes in but to avoid them altogether”, and that’s what they believed.

In fact, it turns out Gideon didn’t do “the simplest thing”. He just mentioned it in passing.

And everybody was wrong-footed, including the mainstream media (not that they’d have complained, being a gang of Tory-supporting lickspittles).

Now we’re all rushing to rectify the record.

But will the general public even notice?

Labour has released research showing how new claimant families will get lower in-work benefit entitlements when tax credits are replaced by the universal credit benefit system.

Owen Smith, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said research commissioned from the House of Commons library shows that next year, thousands of working families will be up to £2,500 a year worse off as a result of the government’s cuts to universal credit.

“It is now quite apparent that the chancellor only offered a partial reversal of his cuts to working people’s incomes in last week’s statement. Next year, half a million families may be hit by cuts to tax credit’s successor, universal credit,” said Smith.

“This newly commissioned research shows that working families on universal credit still face devastating losses next year. A 23-year-old single parent with two children, working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, is set to lose £2,500.”

Both the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Resolution Foundation thinktanks last week said they believe millions of working families will be worse off by 2020 because of welfare changes than they would have been under the current system.

There are 2.6 million working families who stand to lose an average £1,600 as a result of benefit changes due to come into force under universal credit, while 1.9 million would be £1,400 better off, the IFS noted.

It stressed that no family will take an immediate cash hit, but the “long-term generosity of the welfare system will be cut just as much as was ever intended, as new claimants will receive significantly lower benefits than they would have done before the July changes.”

The Resolution Foundation said the changes will cost working households £1,000 on average in 2020 and the losses could rise to £3,000 for some families.

However, the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions hit back at the independent studies, saying it was “completely misleading” to suggest families would lose money, because the universal credit rates will only apply to new claimants.

Source: Household bills targeted by chancellor as Labour raises fears over benefit cuts

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