A "Political Betting" view of George Osborne

I was interested to read on the excellent Political Betting website a comment on George Osborne by a poster using the name "Fenster" which I suspect may bear more than a little resemblance to how history will judge him:

"Fenster" wrote:

Fenster Posts: 567
edited 8:00PM
                     
"I think Osborne has done a good job over the five years.

If we set aside the left/right politics of it all and accept that we live in a country addicted to debt with an electorate with unreasonable expectations of our public services (me included), then no Chancellor was ever going to eradicate the deficit in five years. It wasn't politically or electorally feasible; not without riots.

He inherited a disastrous set of numbers, I think everybody accepts that, regardless of who was to blame. Then the disaster which befell Greece and the EU within his first few months was probably more damaging (and scarier) than the government let on, so for a Chancellor running the economy it was a fraught task.

Obviously, Chancellor's aren't directly responsible for all the good things that happen just as they aren't to blame for all the bad things that happen, but they do get denigrated when things go wrong so they should get some plaudits as well.

The fact that employment has risen in larger numbers under Osborne than it has under any Chancellor for ages is pretty bloody special. And to create 2.3million private sector jobs in five years, under 'austerity' conditions, is also a great achievement. I think he also deserves credit for the general direction of travel and his efforts to put money back in people's pockets rather than want to spend it for them.

He's made mistakes as one would expect but given the dire circumstances he's done things well. His relationship with Danny Alexander and other Lib Dems has also been highly commendable - to maintain such mature relationships with so many ministers among two different governing parties, during such fraught times, is not to be sniffed at.

It is probably his last budget, but history will be kind to him, I think."

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