Osborne’s crazy admission

Tim Montgomerie flags up this passage from Andrew Rawsley’s column today:

“Mr Osborne raised some eyebrows at a recent private meeting in the City when he was heard to remark that ‘40% of my time is spent on economics’ – meaning that most of his hours are spent on campaigns and tactics. Mr Osborne seemed to think that 40% was an impressively large amount of his time to find to spend on economics; some of his audience thought it was a worryingly low proportion for the man who expects to be chancellor in less than a year’s time.”

Of course, it’s no secret that Osborne has other responsibilities within his party.  But for him to push this “40 percent” line during an economic crisis is utterly bizarre, and will just fuel chatter that he’d be better off elsewhere in the Tory operation.  You can expect Downing Street to seize on this with glee.