The interview with George Osborne in the Mail on Sunday magazine today is well worth a read. It's online HERE.
It's easy to make a complete arse of yourself in interviews like this, so I was relieved to read George had done no such thing. Indeed, it was quite a revealing interview and showed that he is far from the 'toff' the Labour Party likes to make out.
Well, an interview with the deep blue Mail on Sunday hardly constitutes a 'test'. With the Guardian or Times, maybe. It reads like pure PR puffery.
ReplyDeleteIs he not a toff? I suppose it depends on your definition. As the piece points out, though a long way down
ReplyDelete"He has an estimated personal fortune of around £4 million, as the beneficiary of a trust fund that owns a 15-per-cent stake in Osborne & Little, the wallpaper-and-fabrics company co-founded by his father, Sir Peter Osborne."
It's a bit different from, say, Alan Johnson's upbringing....
Help me out Simon (7:18) Are all toffs rich? Are all rich people toffs? Is being a toff a handicap to being a politician? Are you more real if your family were poor? Above which level of family income should someone be disbarred from becoming a politician?
ReplyDeleteNot A Sheep
ReplyDeleteNot al toffs are rich and not all rich people are toffs. However, someone with a £4m trust fund set up by his titled father seems to me to fulfil the basic criteria for toffdom.
As to your other questions:
Is being a toff a handicap to being a politician? It was for Douglas Hurd and Douglas-Home, so, yes, it can be.
Are you more real if your family were poor? As far as I understand the slightly odd question, we're all equally real, rich and poor alike.
Above which level of family income should someone be disbarred from becoming a politician? No bar in my view.
I think you're reading rather too much into my comment, to be honest.