Osborne’s private life? It’s a distraction

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

I honestly couldn’t care less about what George Osborne was up to twenty or so year ago. The rumours of his past life have swirled around the Westminster village for years now, yet today the story seems to have kicked up a gear. I won’t link to the story, but I’m sure you can find it if you try.

As I said a month or so ago, when praising the candid approach of Louise Mensch MP:

“Sometimes that will mean that the politicians who appear are not as sanitised as we’re used to. They may have a history of drugs use – although that’s surely not a barrier to a successful political career, it didn’t stop Barack Obama after all – they may have had a career outside the Westminster Village (thank god), and they may have complex personal lives.

And thats a good thing. Because in many ways that’s what politics needs. There are enough clean cut, bog-standard, cookie-cutter replicas in the commons today on all sides of the house. What we need are some characters, some people with a different life experience – and yes, some MPs with less than clean cut past lives. That’s much more representative of modern Britain and we should embrace it.”

There may be many things that George Osborne got up to before he entered parliament that would be of interest to the tabloids, but they shouldn’t be the focus of of our attacks. In fact they should be ignored by Labour people – they’re a distraction.

We shouldn’t concentrate on the twenty years before Osborne ended up at No.11 – it’s the year he has spent in that that counts. That’s where the damage is being done – that’s what we should be expending our energy on.