George Osborne: Austerity Chancellor

by Janan Ganesh

A lifelong Tory but a man of few fixed convictions, the author of the most dramatic austerity programme this country has seen since the war, the most aristocratic member of an unusually privileged government and a ferociously ambitious moderniser with aspirations for the premiership, George Osborne is perhaps the most modern and metropolitan figure in British public life. This is the story of Osborne and the era he helped to shape. George Osborne: Austerity Chancellor charts the mixture of rare brilliance, deadly opportunism and extraordinary good fortune that propelled his vertiginous ascent through British politics, from journalist fresh out of university to the youngest Chancellor in over a century. In doing so, it paints a portrait of that rare thing in the coalition government: a compelling character. New Labour teemed with big, complicated personalities, such as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson. By contrast, the coalition's dramatis personae contain a surfeit of blandly well-rounded types, including David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Osborne is an exception, and yet the public only has the faintest sense of the man. His story is the story of the past two decades of British politics, from the revival of the Tories to the reformation of the state. This is the age of Osborne.

Genres: Politics, History

368 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2012

Reviews

[jas]

Man reading this in the year 2026 feels so fucking ironic man i forget he was genuinely the chancellor and hasnt just been queerbaiting on his podcast with ed balls for all of eternity. shout out to him accusing gordon brown of being autistic i really personally think he shouldve reflected on the implications of what was originally said to him. get tested my guy. anyway my close personal enemy george osborne. the thea rogers mention killed me we should've armed francis with a gun idk

[Keira]

Since this book was only released in 2012, before anything to do with the latter controversies of the Cameron government, this book acts more as an exploration of Osborne's character than a true evaluation of his time as Chancellor. Because this book takes up most of its pages essentially studying Osborne's upbringing and the formation of his personality[contrary to this book's title, it really does not delve that deep into austerity], we get a sense, despite the author's desperate and rather grovelling attempts to praise Osborne and the 2012 budget, that Osborne is ultimately a rather pathetic character in this story of the coalition - a man who, despite his fancy to be seen as a 'Mandelsonian' [a word Ganesh takes quite a liking to in this book] figure of scandal and shadows, instead comes off with more personal prodding as a rather pretentious and weak man who needs to rely on his elder Cameron for support. Ganesh's prose does a good job at looking into the dynamic between these two, often accurately ascribing Cameron as Osborne's 'protector'. Despite the author's constant praise of Osborne, the main thesis I got from this book is that despite Osborne's grand seeming prowess and lust for power, his juvenile nature and his mean-spirited weakness shall be his downfall. And they sure were. The image at the end likening Osborne presenting his 2012 [omnishambles] budget to a younger version of himself at a debate club at school is very poignant in making the point that he has no real grip of the real world and policy in action, and is only a man of rhetoric.

Janan Ganesh predicted George Osborne being a cringefail loser flopitician before any of us could. Maybe unintentionally.

[Jules]

george osborne is sort of like my own personal lolcow (i mean trying to reheat the rest is politics nachos is just painful) and i never for a second enjoyed the actual subject of the biography himself but i think there is much to learn here... in particular, the importance of a long term strategic vision (to me, ironically one of the shortcomings of austerity as a whole), simplicity in your comms, strong networking and alliance building, and most importantly the ability to evaluate the situation as it actually is. like wow this guy sucks but you can tell at one point he was seriously cracked at his job and even that in itself is fascinating.

there's obvious shortcomings with this biography, namely writing about the austerity chancellor mid austerity... this is basically the "rise" half of a rise and fall story. to me it is an unforgivable sin to forgo active investment in infrastructure etc when interest rates were low and this is largely responsible for the awful state the country is in today and if i was writing about this guy this would feel absolutely fucking essential.. but obviously in 2015 this was not nearly as apparent, and this isn't even touching the whole mess of brexit. so obviously this is not a comprehensive account and if george osborne hadn't been relegated to khia asylum im sure someone would have written something better by now.

really, its the unravelling of osborne's psychology that was fascinating. very fitting the book ends with the image of osborne doing high school debate because that's exactly his whole insipid essence. a man truly a product of his time, the complete embodiment of the professionalisation of politics and a cautionary tale as to how detrimental this approach can be. and yet, even the father of austerity cannot escape the consequences of the world he has manifested and now has his weird podcast with ed balls that has all the chemistry of the last two people at the bar at the end of the night... not to mention the decision to become the nick clegg of open ai (which, given sam altman is another such object of my fascination i must say provided me with some entertainment). im getting a bit away from the book itself, but what i really mean by all of this is that historical materialism comes for us all whether we like it or not and that's what truly made the read so interesting, as a sort of slice of another world which somehow feels so distant from this one already.

[Lewis Brown]

Might have just been 3* if I'd read the original but the afterword added a more comprehensive finish (could have done with a May 2015 version though). Osborne is a fascinating subject and will be the subject of many more biographies in the future. Ganesh's writing is as informed and enjoyable as his FT columns.

Though I've never known the words adumbrated and nugatory to be used with such frequency!

[Luke]

Good, but perhaps the writer was too in love with the subject to be critical.

NB: This was read and reviewed before Osborne left government. This is one political book that is weakened by irrelevance.

[Rebecca]

Very well written, and interesting to see how the Conservative Party had to change after three defeats in succession (1997, 2001 and 2005).
As to Osborne, I've grown to like him over the years, and it's good to know that he is a normal human being (working as a waiter, in Foyles etc) :)

[Hubert Han]

A decent biography but, perhaps due to the currency of the subject, lacks the pomp and substance of conventional political biographies.