The trick Osborne missed

The politically mobile American entrepreneur is a species which has no real equivalent in British politics. We tend to separate the moneymakers from the policy­makers at an early age. And that is what Steve Forbes, the publishing billionaire and former presidential candidate, thinks has gone wrong in Britain: our political class has lost its sense of enterprise, and has no ideas for economic recovery.

We meet in Claridge’s hotel: he’s in London for a visit cut short by his attempt to avoid the worst strikes since the 1970s. To him, this is just the most visible sign that Britain is regaining the status it had when he was young: ‘the sick man of Europe’.

‘The journey has begun,’ he says. ‘The only reason things look relatively good for sterling is because the euro’s just as bad, and the dollar’s just as bad. It’s like three weaklings competing — none of them are going to make the Olympics.