Wealthy old Etonian George Osborne, with his family trust fund holding 15% of the toffs’ wallpaper boutique Osborne & Little (wonder how they’re doing in the recession?), wants us all to face the ‘home truth’ that we must work hard for our money to get out of the current recession.
Before his speech in Birmingham, Osborne no doubt received a detailed briefing on the concept of ‘work’, an activity of which he had no previous knowledge, but he obviously grasped the essentials pretty well: make sure you get the plebs and voters to do the work for you.
The prospective Tory Chancellor (or should that be ‘chancer’? -ed.) went on to say “Our banks hold up a mirror to the worst excesses of society”… and presumably he’s been looking into it… in between totting up his receipts from the ‘patrons’ listed in his official declaration of Members Interests, that is:
Mr S Robertson of London
Mr Michael Hintze / CQS
Lord Harris of Peckham/Harris Ventures (is that the carpet-seller?)
Mr Jeremy Isaac
Mr Julian Schild
Sir John Beckwith
Hugh Sloane
AP and Mrs B Yerolemou
Lady Serena Rothschild
Andrew Scott
Hugh Sloane
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Grant Thornton
The European School of Management
The Boston Consulting Group
Smith and Williamson
Brevan Howard Asset Management.
Money for nothing, George?
It’s probably the one subject where he can claim expert knowledge.