If the next Tory leadership election is a marathon, George Osborne fell down at mile six with that 2012 Budget. Most of those watching assumed that was the end of him. But Osborne got up, dusted himself down and started making his way back through the pack.
Today’s speech showed that Osborne thinks he’s now back in that race. It was littered with the personal pronoun. It included a tribute to his parents who founded what Osborne called a small manufacturing company’ which the rest of us call Osborne and Little, the up-market wallpaper merchants beloved of the interior designing classes. It also showed off his acid sense of humour, there were a slew of jokes at the Miliband brothers’ expense.
Now, Osborne’s many rivals in the parties will dismiss the idea of him running for leader as preposterous. They’ll point to the fact he’s barely an asterisk in Conservative Home’s next leader poll, scoring a mere 2%.
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