George Osborne

W

Warbler

At the Start
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Jun 6, 2005
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Looks iffy doesn't it? He's clearly the one ally who Cameron can't afford to lose, but I'm slightly suspicious of the line of questioning pursued by the media pack. It looked just a little bit too orchestrated to me, and the lines of enquiry taken were particularly persistant in unpicking Osborne's semantic use of language. Clearly Osborne has been caught wobbling around all day, and ducked and dived throughout the day changing his story.

And it emerges tonight that a 5th witness has emerged who supports Nat Rothschild's account of who said what to who. And Rothschild for his part is saying he'll testify on oath if necessary. I suspect he'll wobble out of this, but it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that he was most definately trying to obtain a donation, what ever mechanisms or intermediaries were being used to achieve it.

Back to the 1990's again? shades of Asil Nadir?
 
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Just a reminder that bad as it has been recently it could be worse - The Tories could be in. This chinless wonder is their number two guy. Unreal.
 
I'm inclined to think he's their number 1 guy to be honest.

Technically, it's a pretty serious offence and his weasley words in trying to deny it reminds so much of Alan Clark, who woudl never tell a lie it was alleged but very duplicitous in how he interpreted a question and therefore answered it.

Famously he produced a paper slamming his then boss Tom King on 'options for change' and was challenged to deny that he had given it to Thatcher. He duly did this with a clear conscience as he knew he'd given to a third party in the knowledge that they'd give it to Thatcher etc Osborne's answers today really did remind of that kind of public school boy avoidance and displaying a sense of technical dexterity with regards to the semantics of language both in terms of the interpretation of questions, and more specifically the answers.

For instance, he's making a big play on the words "we didn't solicit a donation" (in reference to himself and Feldman) that's not to say that someone didn't, just that the two of them didn't do it together etc Or that the approach came from an intermediary in Osbornes knowledge.
 
That would be Commissioner Mandy.

I'm not entirely sure about the appropriatenesss of his attendance, but as EU Commissioner for Trade it wouldn't be unheard of for him to rub shoulders with industry leaders or financiers, although you might wonder why he couldn't do this in Brussels. In any event, I don't think there's any suggestion that Mandy asked for money, although he was involved with setting aluminium traiffs at the time it appears to transpire.

If anyone's presence is dubious than it has to be Feldmans. He might have been an old friend of the host, but it appears to be Osborne whose requested his presence. Why? Given that his Tory party association is specifically fund raising.

I also note that Rothschild has said he'd be happy to go to court under oath, and Osborne has declined to have his version tested thus.

In the absence of a monetary transaction its quite probable that he'll be ok, but it does leave one more than a tiny bit suspicious that a conversation along the lines that Rothschild suggests has taken place, with the emphasis being on how a hypothetical donation could be made and concealed. Especially we now seemingly have a neutral American corroborating the story. It seems unlikely that to my mind that Rothschild would be sympathetic to the Labour party, and I don't think there's any suggestion of a political motive here, just the breaking of some kind of 'Chatham House Rules' type of arrangement which Osborne is clearly regarded as having done.

It half reminds me of the John Major/ Clare Latimer thing, where you knew there was something more to it, but somehow we (or the media) were failing to pursue the correct line of enquiry. Indeed, I remember a journo friend of mine at the time telling me that Major wasn't squeaky clean and there was something more to it that they couldn't nail down. "In order to get the correct answer, you have to ask the right question" etc Unfortunately for Scallywag, they asked the wrong one and printed which allowed Major to take legal action which was of course settled out of court. This had the effect of backing off the rest of the media. Years later it transpires, the whole thing was a smokescreen to cover up Mr 'back basics' infidelity with Edwina Currie. Again I draw on another journo who had quite a lot of dealings with Currie, who expressed the opinion that he wasn't surprised to learn that she'd got involved in such a triste, but was shocked to discover that she'd be able to "keep her mouth shut" for so long.
 
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