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[/audioplayer]George Osborne’s first taste of political leadership came aged 12. At his prep school, Colet Court, he took charge of a party for school election in 1983. The Chancellor’s chosen party (as the forthcoming schools guide will discuss) was not the Conservatives, but his own Independent Conservatives. Sadly, history does not record what caused this schism — but it does seem to be the first evidence of Osborne’s modernising tendencies. He has always exhibited a very distinct form of Conservatism, and one that has recently moved in an intriguing new direction.
At the beginning of David Cameron’s leadership, you would have put Osborne down as the ultimate Tory moderniser. He was far more socially liberal than Cameron and more metropolitan in outlook — very much the product of his London upbringing.
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