Please see my latest wire — and first as Brexit diarist — for The New York Sun, ‘ With the Tories in disarray editor George Osborne starts feeling his oats’:
The editor of London’s Evening Standard is feeling his oats. George Osborne was Chancellor of the Exchequer until last June’s Brexit referendum, when prime minister David Cameron left office after his support for the “Remain” campaign. When Theresa May acceded to the leadership, Mr. Osborne felt the bristles of the new broom.Mr. Osborne landed the Standard editorship last month, and promptly started using his new perch to cast aspersions upon the Conservative Government of which he had once been a central figure. Last week, in the wake of Mrs. May’s humiliation at the polls, Mr. Osborne called her a “dead woman walking.” His latest is an editorial arguing that “this is no time to ditch fiscal responsibility.”
You don’t say. When Mr. Cameron came to power at the head of a coalition government in 2010, his Treasury officials found a letter left them by the outgoing Labor chief secretary, Liam Byrne: “I’m afraid there is no money.” Seven years on — two with a majority Conservative government — there still isn’t any money.
Fiscal hawks will lament that the British deficit and debt are, respectively, a staggering £50 billion and £1,700 billion. Even with the wind at its back, the Tory government failed to do little more than slow the growth of government and hope that better economic conditions — investment, entrepreneurship, and growth — would swell Treasury coffers. The deficit declines accordingly, but the debt continues its upward climb.
My thanks to editor Seth Lipsky of The New York Sun.
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