Is Osborne ready for the next crisis?

There is a strange pre-Lehman feeling in the air right now: the idea that something awful is going to happen, but no one knows what or when. This is laden with political ramifications. The problem for the Tories last time was not that George Osborne had been caught aboard HMS Deripaska. The greater problem was that a crash had arrived and the Shadow Chancellor had nothing to say. Brown, at least, seemed to have an agenda, and the Tory poll lead was reduced to one vulnerable point. I admire Osborne, but he can do far better in making the case for the government’s economic strategy. If there is a second crash, he’ll need all his skills to convey confidence – to sound as if he knows what he’s talking about. It won’t do to say “it started in the Eurozone”, echoing Brown’s much-mocked “it started in America”. He’ll have to illustrate that any crash is not a reaction to cuts, given that state spending from 2010-11 was the highest in British history, and then explain how he’ll rescue the situation.