Bored George, our part-time Chancellor

“Sorry mate, there’s nothing I can do”. That, in essence, sums up George Osborne’s economic policy ahead of the budget. The Daily Telegraph yesterday quoted him saying the government has “run out of money” because it was all “spent in the good years.”

And his stunning panacea for our spluttering economy? “The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector.”

This is not just a case of a chancellor dampening down pre-budget speculation so much as throwing a bucket of iced water over it. Take it as read George, speculation is sodden and shivering.

Chancellors need to exude resolution and rectitude, but George Osborne now resembles a First World War general, stubbornly refusing to countenance alternative measures, either through pig-headed arrogance or wilful neglect.

His lack of imagination and urgency in addressing the precarious state of the economy is breathtaking. As Labour’s shadow Treasury minister Chris Leslie has pointed out: “He needs to realise that government has a vital role to play in creating an environment where the private sector can grow and create jobs.”

When he hears reasonable entreaties like this I imagine the Chancellor, curling a sneer, simply turns down the volume in his head.

It would be easy to mock this son of privilege for being out of touch with the lives of ordinary people in the real economy, but a big part of the problem is more mundane: George is bored and clearly hates the slow, earnest grind of governing.

It’s been said many times before that he prefers the cut and thrust of political combat instead. Leaked cables from the US Ambassador, Louis Susman, from before the last election quote Bank of England Governor, Sir Mervyn King, who notes that Cameron and Osborne “have a tendency to think about issues only in terms of politics and how they might affect Tory electorability.”

Exclusable, just in an opposition; unforgiveable, surely, in a government?

Yet this is precisely how Osborne continues to operate. He apparently finds time to spend half his working day huddled in Number 10, attending the twice-daily political strategy meetings, briefing David Cameron for Prime Minister’s Questions and generally sticking his nose into the running of the press office.

As the Daily Telegraph’s Peter Obone observes disapprovingly, it is “completely unprecedented for a serving chancellor to play this kind of double role.” He goes on: “If Britain were a company, Osborne would simultaneously be the chief strategist, the finance director, and the personal coach to the chief executive, an unhealthily diverse confusion of jobs.

He adds: “Treasury officials worry that they can’t get face time with their boss. Many people will find it very shocking that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, faced with economic calamity, is not working flat out on his job.”

Quite. Yet while Boris can find time for double-jobbing, George Osborne is a triple-jobber. Those Buller boys are so competitive; even if they appear to have a form of attention deficit disorder. However government cuts were not supposed to see the second most important job in government reduced to a part-time post.

At a time when so many families and businesses are crying out for help in getting the economy moving again, we deserve better than to be lumbered with a partisan dilettante like George Osborne.