In the Old Testament, in the Book of Judges to be precise, there is a character named
Gideon whom God calls to drive the Midanites out of Israel. He is nervous and uncertain and a man of great humility, and yet (as with many Biblical figures and great people throughout history) that humility is used to great advantage and through cunning and intelligence the Midanites are defeated.
Some 3,000 years later, a namesake who decides to eschew such a name which he sees as naff, has no sense of proper humility (indeed if
this little incident is anything to go by) and yet in being bold and trying to look clever and wise he makes mistakes,
and today he has been making mistakes which will rebound on the more vulnerable in our society.
For a start there is the axing of Child Trust Fund Payments, which is pure Thatcherism in terms of seeing a policy as indulgence rather than helping those who desperately need it, then of course he is being a bit coy regards to job losses. He hasn't mentioned any and this morning my Jaw dropped when I watched him being interviewed on BBC Breakfast stating that there would be no refilling of vacancies, but no redundancies either! What Planet does he think we are on, of course there will be job losses in that sort of environment, unless of course he wishes to give redundancies another name.
To be honest though, how many of us expected nothing less from the man. Make no mistake though, as this morning's
Times cartoon showed. Osborne will do the dirty and when the mess hits the fan he will shift the blame onto his Lib Dem colleagues and try and look good, irrespective of the fact that he has an unfortunate knack of making enemies left, right, and centre.
You watch, that is exactly what will happen. The trick is to make sure that he doesn't get away from the blame when it does.
Labels: Coalition, Conservatives, George Osborne, HM Treasury, Liberal Democrats
