George osborne

George Osborne became the subject of much mockery over the weekend after Rohan Silva let slip that the former chancellor had only decided to apply to be editor of the Evening Standard editor after friends had come to him for help with their own applications. While Mr S has since advised readers not to approach the MP for Tatton for career advice (unless one is sure Osborne would not be interested in the job for himself), it may be best to avoid going to Osborne for help full stop. Mr S couldn't help but recall an interview the Tory politician gave to the Mail on Sunday, in which he revealed how he met his wife Frances.

Lesson No.1: Never ask George - 'six jobs' - Osborne for career advice. Or at least, never ask the former chancellor for career advice if you think it's a job he could be tempted by. On the Today programme this morning, Rohan Silva -- the former No 10 SpAd -- took to the airwaves to try and defend his one-time boss's decision to take on the role of Evening Standard editor while also continuing as the MP for Tatton and as a £650k per annum advisor to BlackRock. Alas, despite his best efforts, Mr S suspects that Silva may have actually made the situation worse.

Following the announcement that George Osborne is the new editor of the Evening Standard, the BBC's media editor Amol Rajan was quick to brand the appointment 'a remarkable move that will dazzle the worlds of politics and media'. But -- as dazzling as it may or may not be -- did Evgeny Lebedev only turn to George Osborne after the editor of London's rival free sheet rebuffed his advances? Word reaches Steerpike that it was City AM's Christian May who was first approached -- but decided to stay put in his current role rather than jump ship. While May has not responded to Mr S's request for comment -- should Osborne need any advice on his new role, Steerpike hopes he will prove more forthcoming.

It is almost always unwise to postpone the introduction of a big, scheduled tax change, but often tempting at the time. George Osborne, when Chancellor of the Exchequer in the coalition government, postponed the revaluation of business rates, when it was due two years ago, for obvious political reasons. So now it is happening, and it hurts worse than it would have then. The current rates are based on the rental value of business properties in 2010. Since then, the scene is transformed. The internet has called the whole concept of the ordinary, physical shop into question. Values have vastly altered and the political problem – as with the poll tax in the 1980s – is that losers are more vocal than gainers.

It has been clear for some time that the pre-referendum warnings made by Bank of England governor Mark Carney were wide of the mark. Last May, he said that a vote for Brexit would pose an ‘immediate and significant threat’ to the UK economy, increasing unemployment, hitting growth, possibly to the point of recession. Today, however, the bank effectively admits that it was still being far too gloomy about the economy even last November. It upgraded its forecast for economic growth in 2017 from 1.4 per cent (as announced in the Autumn statement) to two per cent – saying that consumer spending has been stronger than expected and that the global economy as a whole has been performing better. The wonder is now why on Earth the Bank of England kept interest rates at 0.

An unexpected silver lining to leaving government is that I have a much nicer parliamentary office. The Chancellor’s traditional room in the House of Commons is rather dank and gloomy, with peeling ceiling plaster. Despite repeated efforts by pest control, it is overrun with moths. As a backbencher, my new office is, by contrast, a large, bright room overlooking the Thames and the London Eye. The office used to belong to David Davis, who was — rather reluctantly, I understand — forced to vacate it on entering government. So far I have resisted the jovial advice from various fellow MPs to have my new room swept to make sure it is free of bugs of a different kind. My office sits on a corner of Portcullis House, which some have taken to calling the Naughty Corner.

Well, is it our fault? George Osborne has repeated his claim, which he has made already, that the situation in Aleppo did not 'come out of a vacuum' but was due to a 'vacuum of Western and British leadership'. Specifically he was taking issue with the Commons’ vote three years ago not to back airstrikes on the Assad regime on account of its use of chemical weapons – you know, Barack Obama’s red line issue. There’s a lot of this kind of thing around. The Commons yesterday was in full blown tearful mode yesterday in the debate on Aleppo called by Andrew Mitchell in the course of which George emerged to take the moral high ground.

The existence of the Laffer Curve can be proved by thought-experiment alone. If a government levies an income tax rate of 0 per cent it will raise zero revenue. If it levies a rate of 100 per cent it will also raise zero revenue, as no-one will bother to earn any money – or at least declare any earnings. Somewhere between those extremes lies an optimum point at which the tax-take reaches a maximum value. Trouble is, no-one really knows where the peak of the Laffer Curve lies for income tax, or for any other tax for that matter. George Osborne asserted that – at least for income tax in Britain – it lies some way below 50 per cent.

In last week's Autumn statement, Philip Hammond appeared to channel his inner Ed Miliband as he banned letting fees and went on a borrowing splurge. Today at Treasury questions, it was Labour's turn to cross-dress. After John McDonnell sparked much laughter from Tory benches by referring to Mark Field's chief of staff -- behind yesterday's so-called Brexit leak -- as a senior government official, his shadow chief secretary went on to press Hammond to make a guarantee -- as Labour are -- that he would keep the triple lock throughout the next parliament. While the pension triple lock -- introduced by the coalition -- was something George Osborne championed throughout his tenure as chancellor, Hammond appears to have no such agenda.

Philip Hammond started his autumn statement to the House of Commons by saying his style would be rather different to George Osborne’s. Yet the Chancellor still had a rabbit to pull out of his hat at the end -- albeit one designed to show he wasn’t a political meddler like previous holders of his job by saying there would no longer be two economic statements involving changes to fiscal policy ‘for the sake of it’ -- and even continued Osborne’s practice of announcing money to restore a historic building.