Tory grandees urge Cameron to give Osborne’s job to Ken Clarke
Senior Conservatives are privately urging David Cameron to bring back Kenneth Clarke to replace George Osborne as Shadow Chancellor.
The rumbles at Westminster against Osborne began after newspaper reports revealed he had been entertained on board the yacht of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska after meeting Lord Mandelson at a holiday retreat on the Greek island of Corfu. The revelations forced Osborne to deny he had solicited a £50,000 donation from Deripaska and were seen as compromising his ability to challenge Gordon Brown over his handling of the economy. Some Tory grandees are also critical of his shift away from the principal of reining in spending to finance cuts in income tax.
Clarke, who lost out to Cameron in the race to replace Michael Howard as leader in 2005, has many enemies because of his pro-European stance, but he is seen as too 'big a beast' to leave on the sidelines when the Tories need a big hitter to attack Gordon Brown over the economic crisis.
One highly placed Tory told the Mole it was the talk of the tearoom at the Commons. "Ninety per cent of the parliamentary party would like to see Ken brought back to the Treasury. He is the only one Labour truly fear," said the MP.
Clarke, as John Major's Chancellor, oversaw the recovery of the economy after the pound was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday, and hinted in a recent interview that there is one big job left in him. Osborne, meanwhile, is being seen as an ideal choice to become party chairman to manage the general election campaign. "Osborne could put some stick about and act as Cameron's Rottweiler," said the Tory source.
Some say Cameron would not give Brown a 'scalp' by moving Osborne, his closest friend in politics, but he is holding back on a major reshuffle until the outcome of the 'nannygate' inquiry involving Tory party chairman Caroline Spelman. She is under investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner over revalations she paid her nanny from taxpayer-funded expenses to act as a secretary in the late 1990s.
However, the chatter about Osborne's future has gone all the way to the august body of Tory grey suits - the 1922 committee - and cannot be dismissed as a mere storm in the Commons tearoom.
THE MOLE: OSBORNE UNDER PRESSURE
FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 13, 2008
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