This is an insightful must-read article from the Economist.
Source: The Osborne Doctrine | The Economist
Regular readers will know that this blog has not been a great fan of UK Chancellor, George Osborne. This is to do with Osborne’s hard-line on austerity and slow choice of strategic options.
However, it’s worth differentiating between Osborne as Finance Minister compared to effectively Deputy Prime Minister. He’s a very wily political animal and could well be the UK’s next Prime Minister.
Thoughts?
Dr Alf's Blog 
George Osborne will, barring his demise, become the next Prime Minister.
His approach to China is exactly right because we need to trade with them and other regimes and to do that we must reserve our criticisms for private discussions so as to save their face.
In any case before we criticise we must be sure that we are beyond reproach and too often we are people in “glass houses” throwing stones.
The benefits cap brought in by George Osborne makes good sense because it clears benefits recipients out of London and expensive cities freeing up space for inward investors, the wealthy and job creators.
That in turn creates a ripple effect throughout the rest of the country.
My criticisms of George Osborne are that he needs to limit the timescale of austerity by administering the medicine much faster and that more needs to be done to help exporters and encourage inward investment,greater worker productivity and a more enlightened approach to business risk by directors spending too much time sitting on their hands.