READ ORIGINAL POST HERE
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta vidas. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta vidas. Mostrar todas las entradas
jueves, 28 de enero de 2016
Poor Little Rich Women
By WEDNESDAY MARTIN
MAY 16, 2015
read original post here and here
WHEN our family moved from the West Village to the Upper East Side in 2004, seeking proximity to Central Park, my in-laws and a good public school, I thought it unlikely that the neighborhood would hold any big surprises. For many years I had immersed myself — through interviews, reviews of the anthropological literature and participant-observation — in the lives of women from the Amazon basin to sororities at a Big Ten school. I thought I knew from foreign.
Then I met the women I came to call the Glam SAHMs, for glamorous stay-at-home-moms, of my new habitat. My culture shock was immediate and comprehensive. In a country where women now outpace men in college completion, continue to increase their participation in the labor force and make gains toward equal pay, it was a shock to discover that the most elite stratum of all is a glittering, moneyed backwater.
A social researcher works where she lands and resists the notion that any group is inherently more or less worthy of study than another. I stuck to the facts. The women I met, mainly at playgrounds, play groups and the nursery schools where I took my sons, were mostly 30-somethings with advanced degrees from prestigious universities and business schools. They were married to rich, powerful men, many of whom ran hedge or private equity funds; they often had three or four children under the age of 10; they lived west of Lexington Avenue, north of 63rd Street and south of 94th Street; and they did not work outside the home.
Instead they toiled in what the sociologist Sharon Hays calls “intensive mothering,” exhaustively enriching their children’s lives by virtually every measure, then advocating for them anxiously and sometimes ruthlessly in the linked high-stakes games of social jockeying and school admissions.
Their self-care was no less zealous or competitive. No ponytails or mom jeans here: they exercised themselves to a razor’s edge, wore expensive and exquisite outfits to school drop-off and looked a decade younger than they were. Many ran their homes (plural) like C.E.O.s.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that my background in anthropology might help me figure it all out, and that this elite tribe and its practices made for a fascinating story.
I was never undercover; I told the women I spent time with that I was writing a book about being a mother on the Upper East Side, and many of them were eager to share their perspectives on what one described as “our in many ways very weird world.”
It was easy for me to fall into the belief, as I lived and lunched and mothered with more than 100 of them for the better part of six years, that all these wealthy, competent and beautiful women, many with irony, intelligence and a sense of humor about their tribalism (“We are freaks for Flywheel,” one told me, referring to the indoor cycling gym), were powerful as well. But as my inner anthropologist quickly realized, there was the undeniable fact of their cloistering from men. There were alcohol-fueled girls’ nights out, and women-only luncheons and trunk shows and “shopping for a cause” events. There were mommy coffees, and women-only dinners in lavish homes. There were even some girlfriend-only flyaway parties on private planes, where everyone packed and wore outfits the same color.
“It’s easier and more fun,” the women insisted when I asked about the sex segregation that defined their lives.
“We prefer it,” the men told me at a dinner party where husbands and wives sat at entirely different tables in entirely different rooms.
Sex segregation, I was told, was a “choice.” But like “choosing” not to work, or a Dogon woman in Mali’s “choosing” to go into a menstrual hut, it struck me as a state of affairs possibly giving clue to some deeper, meaningful reality while masquerading, like a reveler at the Save Venice ball the women attended every spring, as a simple preference.
And then there were the wife bonuses.
I was thunderstruck when I heard mention of a “bonus” over coffee. Later I overheard someone who didn’t work say she would buy a table at an event once her bonus was set. A woman with a business degree but no job mentioned waiting for her “year-end” to shop for clothing. Further probing revealed that the annual wife bonus was not an uncommon practice in this tribe.
A wife bonus, I was told, might be hammered out in a pre-nup or post-nup, and distributed on the basis of not only how well her husband’s fund had done but her own performance — how well she managed the home budget, whether the kids got into a “good” school — the same way their husbands were rewarded at investment banks. In turn these bonuses were a ticket to a modicum of financial independence and participation in a social sphere where you don’t just go to lunch, you buy a $10,000 table at the benefit luncheon a friend is hosting.
But what exactly did the wife bonus mean? It made sense only in the context of the rigidly gendered social lives of the women I studied. The worldwide ethnographic data is clear: The more stratified and hierarchical the society, and the more sex segregated, the lower the status of women.
Financially successful men in Manhattan sit on major boards — of hospitals, universities and high-profile diseases, boards whose members must raise or give $150,000 and more. The wives I observed are usually on lesser boards, women’s committees and museums in the outer boroughs with annual expectations of $5,000 or $10,000. Husbands are trustees of prestigious private schools, where they accrue the cultural capital that comes with being able to vouch for others in the admissions game; their wives are “class moms,” the unremunerated social and communications hub for all the other mothers.
WHILE their husbands make millions, the privileged women with kids who I met tend to give away the skills they honed in graduate school and their professions — organizing galas, editing newsletters, running the library and bake sales — free of charge. A woman’s participation in Mommynomics is a way to be helpful, even indispensable. It is also an act of extravagance, a brag: “I used to work, I can, but I don’t need to.”
Anthropology teaches us to take the long and comparative view of situations that may seem obvious. Among primates, Homo sapiens practice the most intensive food and resource sharing, and females may depend entirely on males for shelter and sustenance. Female birds and chimps never stop searching out food to provide for themselves and their young. Whether they are Hadza women who spend almost as much time as men foraging for food, Agta women of the Philippines participating in the hunt or !Kung women of southern Africa foraging for the tubers and roots that can tide a band over when there is no meat from a hunt, women who contribute to the group or family’s well-being are empowered relative to those in societies where women do not. As in the Kalahari Desert and rain forest, resources are the bottom line on the Upper East Side. If you don’t bring home tubers and roots, your power is diminished in your marriage. And in the world.
Rich, powerful men may speak the language of partnership in the absence of true economic parity in a marriage, and act like true partners, and many do. But under this arrangement women are still dependent on their men — a husband may simply ignore his commitment to an abstract idea at any time. He may give you a bonus, or not. Access to your husband’s money might feel good. But it can’t buy you the power you get by being the one who earns, hunts or gathers it.
The wives of the masters of the universe, I learned, are a lot like mistresses — dependent and comparatively disempowered. Just sensing the disequilibrium, the abyss that separates her version of power from her man’s, might keep a thinking woman up at night.
A writer and social researcher in New York and the author of the forthcoming memoir “Primates of Park Avenue.”
martes, 6 de octubre de 2015
13 Most Haunted Sites in New York City
October 23, 2013, Emily Nonko
With Halloween looming, thoughts naturally turn to New York’s ghost stories of yore. As you might guess in a city founded in 1624 — and one which has seen its fair share of violence and mayhem, at that — there is no shortage of hauntings reported in each of city’s five boroughs. Some ghosts date back as far as the Revolutionary War, while others are a product of more recent, grisly deaths. Travel with us as we roam New York City and reveal 13 spooky haunts where New Yorkers, dead and alive, still roam.
READ ORIGINAL POST HERE
 |
| Algonquin Hotel, inset: Art Samuels, Charlie MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott, aka, the Algonquin Round Table (Photos: The Algonquin, Thyra/Wikimedia Commons)
Algonquin HotelThis well-regarded Midtown Manhattan hotel is famous for the celebrated group of writers and actors, known as the “Algonquin Round Table,” who congregated there regularly for lunch in the 20s. It’s also famous for ghost stories with reports circulating that the Round Table members still haunt the hotel grounds today. Dorothy Parker, a founding member of the group, tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide in the hotel in 1932. She died in 1967, and some say her spirit has been hanging around since. 59 W. 44th St., 800-627-7468, algonquinhotel.com
 |
The Dakota Although the Dakota is famously known as the murder site of John Lennon, the historic co-op building in the Upper West Side also has a very long history of ghost stories and lore. Lennon himself saw the “Crying Lady Ghost” roaming the hallways of the building — a spectral figure of a woman who wailed down the building corridors. Residents and building workers also report reoccurring sightings of a little girl in turn-of-the-century clothing, as well as the ghost of a young boy. Reportedly Yoko Ono, along with other residents, have seen John Lennon’s spirit periodically in the building. W. 72nd St., 212-362-1448
 |
| A bedroom in the Morris-Jumel Mansion, inset: Madame Eliza Jumel (Photo: Elisa.rolle/Wikipedia CC) Morris-Jumel Mansion This Washington Heights mansion is Manhattan’s oldest house and was George Washington’s headquarters during the Revolutionary War. It’s also haunted by the actress and prostitute Madame Eliza Jumel. Jumel was driven into bankruptcy and divorced by her second husband (and third Vice President of the United States) Aaron Burr; eventually she lost her mind and died in the mansion at age 92. There are reports she roams the building and taps on the windows and doors. In 1962 a mysterious woman asked a group of visiting school children to quiet down, despite no living person living inside. That’s not the building’s only haunting — the ghosts of Aaron Burr, a maidservant, a Revolutionary War soldier, and Stephen Jumel, Eliza’s first husband who died a mysterious death, are also reported to roam the grounds. 65 Jumel Ter., 212-923-8008, morrisjumel.org  White Horse Tavern, Dylan Thomas circa 1950 (Photos: Wallyg/Flickr CC, Hulton Archive/Getty Images) White Horse TavernMost famous for being the bar where poet Dylan Thomas died in 1953 — collapsing outside the bar after a reported 18 whiskey shots — the historic White Horse Tavern also holds a nostalgic place in the West Village‘s low-key bar scene. Thomas’ haunts can’t hurt its popularity; patrons say they’ve seen him sitting at his favorite corner table in the bar, or wandering outside. It certainly helps that the wooden bar looks nearly unchanged since it opened in 1880 (today old porcelain horses and portraits of Thomas decorate it). In memoriam, the bar serves the poet’s purported last meal in the back room every year on the anniversary of his death, Nov. 9. 567 Hudson St., 212-989-3956, facebook.com/pages/White-Horse-Tavern/106004742836371 |
Kreischer Mansion
The Kreischer family, which made its fortune in brickmaking, built two mansions in Charleston, Staten Island, in the 1880s (one of which later burnt down). After the family’s brick factory burnt down, the family fortunes diminished and mansion owner Edward Kreischer committed suicide in 1894. Staten Island residents have spotted a spectral couple — possibly Edward and his wife — wandering the grounds. There are also reports of wailing coming from the home. Many years later in 2005, a mob-related murder took place here (it involved stabbing, strangling, drowning, and then chopping up the corpse and putting the pieces into a coal-burning furnace). Now the rundown property is a popular destination for Staten Island kids on Halloween. 4500 Arthur Kill Rd., Staten Island, no phone
The “House of Death” at 14 West 10th Street, Mark Twain (Photos: Beyond My Ken/Wikipedia CC, Library of Congress)
“House of Death”This 1856 Greenwich Village townhouse has been dubbed the “House of Death” thanks to a reported 22 former residents that have haunted the building over the years. A number of these tenants died mysteriously in the home. One of the reported ghosts is Mark Twain, who lived in the house in 1900 and appeared as a ghost in the ground-floor apartment in the 1930s. In 1987, the home made headlines after former New York criminal defense attorney Joel Steinberg beat his 6-year-old daughter to death in the second-floor apartment. 14 W. 10th St, no phone
McCarren Park Pool, pre pool (Photo: Chad Nicholson/Wikimedia CC)
McCarren Park Pool
After many years of disuse, McCarren Park Pool is a newly revamped and working public pool, but the massive crowds who have turn up for the past two summers likely don’t know this place’s dark history. The pool first opened in 1936, and during its golden age there were a series of tragic deaths. Those include a drowning, as well as shooting and stabbing incidents. When the pool was empty (it closed in 1984), passerby claimed to hear the cries of a young girl during the night — the story goes that the ghost of a girl circled the pool crying for help. The Paranormal Investigation of NYC visited the site back in 2004 and reported dramatic temperature drops at the site. They also claim to have taken photographs of mysterious orbs around the pool.
After many years of disuse, McCarren Park Pool is a newly revamped and working public pool, but the massive crowds who have turn up for the past two summers likely don’t know this place’s dark history. The pool first opened in 1936, and during its golden age there were a series of tragic deaths. Those include a drowning, as well as shooting and stabbing incidents. When the pool was empty (it closed in 1984), passerby claimed to hear the cries of a young girl during the night — the story goes that the ghost of a girl circled the pool crying for help. The Paranormal Investigation of NYC visited the site back in 2004 and reported dramatic temperature drops at the site. They also claim to have taken photographs of mysterious orbs around the pool.
Interior of the abandoned Seaview Hospital (Photo: H.L.I.T./Flickr)
Seaview Hospital and New York Farm ColonyFirst a poor house, then a tuberculosis hospital, now a decrepit and abandoned New York City landmark, Staten Island‘s Seaview Hospital and New York Farm Colony has a history of haunting. The farm colony/poor house (designed as a means of rehabilitation for the mentally ill) was established in the 1830s and the hospital opened in 1913. The complex has sat in decay since 1975, but due to a landmark designation in 1985 nothing can be torn down. Workers of the hospital claim to have seen old patients wandering through the hall; now it’s a rotting asylum left to the elements. It’s also close to the former Willowbrook State School for mentally disabled children, which was exposed for shocking abuses by Geraldo Rivera in a 1972 expose. Brielle Avenue and Walcott Avenue, Staten Island, no phone
Brooklyn Public Library (Photo: Library of Congress)
Brooklyn Public LibraryIn 1977, 6-year-old Agatha Ann Cunningham visited the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza with her classmates, disappeared, and was never found. Both employees and patrons have heard mysterious noises, like a girl’s laughter or sobbing, coming from the library’s basement stacks. In 2011, a few interns looked a little further into the haunting, and published a convincing video (misc.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/mipmap/post/2011/11/03/The-True-Story-of-Agatha-Cunningham.aspx) 280 Cadman Plaza W., Brooklyn, 718-230-2100,bklynpubliclibrary.org
Belasco Theater, David Belasco between 1898 and 1916 (Photo: smichael/Flickr, Library of Congress)
Belasco TheaterThe Belasco Theater, in Midtown‘s famed Theater District, is said to be haunted by the theater’s namesake, David Belasco. He started writing plays in the 1880s and died in 1931 — with no scandalous or tragic stories attached to his death — after a celebrated career. Despite his sunny life, his ghost has been spotted by theater workers in the upstairs apartment and offices of the theater wearing a cassock and a clerical collar — they dubbed the ghost “The Monk.” He’s also been seen standing on the balcony, observing the shows that go on in his theater. 111 W 44th St., 212-239-6200, shubertorganization.com/theatres/belasco.asp
The Octagon’s original staircase from the Welfare Island Insane Asylum, exterior as it appears today (Photos: Courtesy of Historic American Buildings Survey—HABS, Jamescastle/Flickr CC)
The OctagonRoosevelt Island, once an island the city used as a location for corrective hospitals, is rife with ghost stores. The Octagon, a rental building located there, was previously the site of the former New York Lunatic Asylum, famously criticized as a place of suffering and horror. The only remaining architectural element of the asylum is the building’s octagon, which is now the centerpiece of the residential development. The residents report unexplainable incidents and paranormal activity; they also report that pets sometimes refuse to walk up the stairs of the building. The island is also home to ruins of a former smallpox building (declared a landmark in 1975), only adding to the eerie vibe of the place. 888 Main St., Roosevelt Island, 212-888-8692
Van Cortlandt House, inset: Adriaen van der Donck (Photos: Dmadeo/Wikimedia CC, PD-ART/Wikimedia CC)
Van Cortlandt ParkThe Van Cortlandt House is the oldest surviving home in the Bronx, located in a park that’s also said to be haunted. Visitors of Van Cortlandt Park, the site of the Stockbridge Indian Massacre, have heard whispers and seen spirits around Vault Hill, the park’s burial grounds. As for the house, built in 1748, it is the site of hauntings by Adriaen Van der Donck, a Dutch settler who laid claim to the area and later died in a Indian raid, and Jacobus Van Cortlandt, the original owner of the home. Sighting of George Washington have also been reported — he stayed at the home at least twice during the Revolutionary War. Van Cortlandt Park St. between Broadway and Jerome Avenue, no phone, nycgovparks.org/parks/X092/
Merchant’s House Museum parlor, inset: Gertrude Tredwell (Photos: Curiousexpeditions/Flickr CC, Merchant’s House Museum)
Merchant’s House MuseumThe New York Times dubbed this East Village house museum the “most haunted house in Manhattan” –there’s even a dedicated section of the Merchant’s House website for the resident ghosts (merchantshouse.com/ghosts/). The Tredwall family lived in the house for nearly 100 years, and the last living resident of the house, Gertrude Tredwell, is said to still watch over it. She died in the home in 1933, and it became a museum in 1936. Since then, the museum staff, visitors and volunteers have experienced strange happenings — sites of a woman in a brown dress roaming the house, mysterious piano music, and unexplainable flashing lights. Through Nov. 4, the museum hosts a series of “spirited” events in honor of its not-quite-dead residents. 29 E. Fourth St., 212-777-1089, merchantshouse.org
miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2015
George Osborne: from the Bullingdon club to the heart of government
Elizabeth Day
@elizabday
Saturday 1 October 2011 14.09 BST
When George Osborne was 17, he took part in a school debate on nuclear disarmament. He was then an A-level politics student at St Paul's in London, one of England's leading public schools. On the day of the debate, a crowd of sixth-formers gathered to listen. Osborne, already perhaps displaying latent right-wing sympathies, was to argue in favour of the nuclear deterrent. On the opposing side, his classmate Sam Bain would put the case for the CND. But as Osborne rose to speak, a rugby teacher came into the classroom to say he was required to play in a match. Osborne rushed out, leaving the notes of his speech behind. "Some guy in the audience read it out and he won pretty unanimously," recalls Bain now. "So basically, I failed to win a debate against him even though he wasn't there."
For Bain the humiliation was not entirely unexpected. Even as an adolescent, Osborne seemed preternaturally composed, somehow older than his contemporaries and with a clear idea of where he was heading and of the kind of person he wanted to become.
"We were 17, and at that point he was grown-up in a way that no one else was in our year," recalls Bain, who went on to co-create Channel 4's Peep Show and the new student comedy Fresh Meat. "He looked and behaved like a man who had already decided what he was going to do with his life."
The story of how that teenager went on to become the youngest chancellor of the exchequer in 120 years is an intriguing one. It contains many surprising elements, including tales of riotous debauchery, allegations of electoral malpractice in student politics and, at one point, an intimate encounter with the pop star Geri Halliwell – more of which later. But in many ways Osborne at 40 still retains the essence of Osborne at 17. Those who work for him now remark on his exceptional political brain, on his ability to outthink his opponents with strokes of tactical genius, to present even the most dense economic argument with an eye to what will make the next day's headlines and to know, deep down in his bones, what will win over a crowd.
"I remember many times when we were faced with a tricky political problem and there'd be a lightbulb moment," says Conservative MP Matthew Hancock, who was Osborne's economic adviser and chief of staff until last year. "There's nobody else I've ever met where that moment was so obvious – his entire face would light up and he'd say: 'No, we'll do it like this.' And it was always a really brilliant idea. He's very creative."
Yet for all that he inspires loyalty among those who work for him, Osborne has enough self-knowledge to realise that his public persona is fatally lacking. On television he comes across as stilted, lacking David Cameron's easy bonhomie and banter. In parliament his youthful features – a plump, pale face; foppish dark hair – only serve to underline the impression that he is an overgrown public schoolboy not quite up to the job of steering the country through a devastating financial crisis. His privileged upbringing – Osborne is the eldest son of Sir Peter Osborne, the 17th holder of a hereditary baronetcy and the co-founder of wallpaper designers Osborne & Little – adds to the tabloid caricature of a toff with a trust fund. His mouth, according to one commentator, "is curled into a permanent sneer so it looks as if he's laughing when he announces yet more cuts to public services".
Unhelpfully, he is forever dogged by two infamous photographs from his past: the first, taken in 1992, depicts Osborne as a latter-day Sebastian Flyte, resplendent in tails and a blue bow tie as a member of Oxford University's Bullingdon Club; the second, taken a few years later, shows him grinning inanely with his arm flung casually around the shoulders of escort Natalie Rowe, surrounded by empty bottles of wine and what might or might not be a line of cocaine on the table in front of him. Those two images have reinforced – unfairly or otherwise – an overriding public sense of Osborne as a dilettante possessed of a healthy sense of entitlement. At a time when he is championing a series of swingeing austerity measures, Osborne is only too aware that such a preconception is unfortunate.
As a consequence he carefully rations his public appearances – a tactic that has earned him the nickname of "the submarine" among Tory staffers. "He stays underwater for a long time and when he appears he prepares impeccably," explains Janan Ganesh, the political correspondent for the Economist who is currently writing a biography of Osborne. "He's very open in private that he will – in his words – 'never be a man of the people'. It's a combination of material privilege and more superficial stuff, like the way he looks and sounds… During the past election campaign, for instance, he was not visible. That was because he knew he was more of an asset behind the scenes."
Osborne at 17 could win a school debate without having to appear in person, but simply by having someone else read out his cleverly structured arguments. Twenty-three years later, as chancellor of the exchequer, that same strategy has been successfully refined and redeployed, albeit on a rather larger scale.
For Sam Bain, Osborne's erstwhile debating partner, there is a feeling of inevitability about his classmate's rise to power. "I certainly feel very old now looking at him as chancellor, but thinking about how he got there, it does make sense," he says. "You probably have to be working at it for 20 years or more to achieve that. It does speak of someone who is very single-minded, and whether or not you agree with his politics, that's a pretty extraordinary thing."
True blues: Osborne (right) became shadow chancellor to William Hague (left) at the age of 33 in 2005, and chancellor to David Cameron (centre) in May 2010. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA
To those who have observed his ascent from the outside, Osborne has always seemed to know exactly where he was going. Friends say that he is adamant that there was no steady teleological process – after graduating with a 2:1 in modern history from Magdalen College, Oxford, he toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist and pursued a number of dead-end jobs (at one point refolding towels in Selfridge's) before a friend mentioned there was a vacancy in the research department of Conservative Central Office. From there he rose to become political secretary and speechwriter to William Hague before getting elected Conservative MP for Tatton in 2001 and then being appointed shadow chancellor by Michael Howard at the precocious age of 33.
Anyone looking at that inexorable rise would be forgiven for thinking Osborne had a masterplan. "Actually at every step [of his career], he had massive doubt," says one friend. "It was: 'What the hell am I going to do next?'"
Although there might have been doubt beneath the surface, superficially he seemed ambitious from the off. During the early days of Cameron's opposition, employees at Conservative Central Office remember that Osborne's professional style was markedly different from that of the leader's. Whereas Cameron would come in each morning bluff and cheerful, greeting everyone by name, Osborne would walk straight to his office without a word and close the door.
"Osborne comes from this clever, entitled background; he's got this 'born to rule' attitude," says one peer. "He's sharp, but he's not as clever as Cameron."
The Cameron-Osborne partnership has always been close – they are godfathers to each other's children – in large part because of their differing strengths. Whereas Cameron is the public face of the party and the embodiment of a broad ideological vision, Osborne is the arch-tactician, the political chess player who delights in the game. He is in some ways the purest (and, some might say, the most terrifying) form of politician: driven not by any specific ideology but by the thrill of the chase, the exercise of statecraft and by ambition itself. "For him, politics is the biggest toy in the playground," says one acquaintance.
"His first thought is: what is the politics of this, both internal and external?" says a former adviser. "It's a great strength, but it can also be a weakness. There are plenty of times in politics where the right thing to do is not the politically correct thing to do. I think George is put on the spot in interviews when people say to him: 'Why are you in politics? How do you want this country to be?' That shines a telling light on him as a person and a thinker. His wiring is political and that means it is contextual, so his answer would depend on the prevailing political mood."
Occasionally his obsession with day-to-day tactics rather than an overarching strategy has led to criticism within the Tory ranks. During the 2010 election campaign, which Osborne was masterminding, he produced a "Top Tory of the Day" T-shirt for any staffer who came up with the cleverest publicity coup. "He loves that kind of stuff," says one political commentator. "He can put doing over your opponent ahead of the need for an underlying vision."
His Liberal Democrat colleagues in the coalition government talk darkly of Treasury briefings against them, always carried out by underlings rather than Osborne himself, who is careful to remain charming in person. "Of course it's partly Treasury arrogance – the institutional inability to give any other department credit," says Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott, who quit as a House of Lords Treasury spokesman earlier this year in protest at Osborne's failure to take strong enough action on bank bonuses. "Osborne is a very, very clever operator. He's got a real eye for the political main chance."
And yet Cameron – who is five years older than his chancellor – has been canny enough to harness this to his own advantage: he already has the advice of Steve Hilton (Cameron's director of strategy) for blue-sky thoughts about Big Societies and the like. Osborne, by contrast, provides the hard-headed calculation. He also has more liberal instincts than Cameron on issues such as abortion and gay adoption. A low-tax, small-state Conservative, he is said to find some of Cameron's money-guzzling social and environmental initiatives baffling. And Osborne can be radical: as a new backbencher, he proposed that the royal family should pay rent for Kensington Palace. It is for these reasons, says Ganesh, that "Cameron absolutely counts on him". They are a complementary partnership.
Unlike Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, whose alleged gentlemen's agreement in 1994 over who would stand for the leadership became part of New Labour political mythology, Osborne insists he struck no such bargain. "There was no deal over the rabbit polenta," he said in an interview six years ago with the Daily Telegraph. That, of course, does not mean he has no ambitions for the leadership – quite the contrary.
"To be a politician at that level, you have to take yourself very seriously and believe you can be leader," says a former Conservative MP who used to work for Osborne. "But I think they learned a lesson from the Blair-Brown years. And that was: never, ever let it happen to us. They are genuinely brothers-in-arms. They've always both just put winning at the top of their list, even if their outlooks and priorities are different."
The door between No 10 and the Treasury at No 11 is always open – in stark contrast to some previous regimes – and the prime minister trusts Osborne enough to allow him to chair the daily 4pm strategy meeting with Cameron's inner team if he is away.
"They were always very close," says one former Conservative cabinet minister, "but David was always clearly the dominant figure in that partnership. When I first met George and David for discussions, George would be silent. He would occasionally chip in, but it was evident that there was a lack of assertiveness and self-confidence. I think that's changed. He's grown in stature very encouragingly, because he needed to if he was going to be effective."
How would his lack of confidence manifest itself? "You'd notice it. There was a certain nervousness."
Again, there is a disparity here between the public and private Osborne. In public he comes across as being almost too confident for his own good; smoothly assured that his deficit-reduction plan is the right course of action even though almost no other western nation has followed suit and some economists continue to predict fiscal measures will cause sluggish growth and high unemployment for decades.
According to one senior adviser: "That's when his political instincts come straight through and he says: 'OK, I'm going to take some flak for this; I'll fight my corner.' I've not seen any impression of any particular gloominess. He's not often shy of political jousting." He is also well-regarded on the international stage, counting Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner among his admirers (not bad for someone who used to have a beginner's guide to economics in his office).
In private, however, there are signs that his self-assurance in parliament is something of an act. At parties he often appears uncomfortable and guarded, as though constantly on the lookout for a potential conversational banana skin. People who meet him outside the House of Commons find him difficult to connect with. "There's an emotional distance there," says one. "Everyone who works with him says he's so charming, but I must admit I've always found him rather charmless."
And it is true that in the corridors of power it is difficult to find anyone with a bad word to say about him on a personal level. Even his most strident critics admit he is likeable, even if his policies aren't.
In coalition he has, according to one Liberal Democrat, been "a courteous colleague. He's a very smooth operator". After the election Osborne made a point of going to business secretary Vince Cable's office to introduce himself, even though it is customary for the more junior minister to make the effort. "He is always polite, quick and very sharp," says one Liberal Democrat. This in spite of the fact that, according to one Conservative peer, Osborne finds the constraints of coalition "extremely irksome". His relationship with Cable is said to be good – at least on the surface – but, says the Lib Dem: "We have to warn Vince about Osborne, because when someone's being nice to him he lets his guard drop."
Within his close team of young advisers – chief of staff Rupert Harrison, special advisers Eleanor Shawcross and Ramesh Chhabra are all in their late 20s or early 30s – he inspires almost fanatical loyalty. They are keen to stress his quick wit and dark, acerbic humour (although the best Osborne joke I heard was his remark during a Christmas party attended by the rapper 50 Cent. He is said to have quipped to guests: "That's Mr Cent to you"), his sympathetic attitude to mothers who need to knock off early if their child is ill and his willingness to give career advice to up-and-coming politicos.
Time and again I am told that "the worst thing you can do in a meeting with George is not to speak your mind". No one I talk to has ever seen him get angry, which suggests a remarkable level of self-control. "No, I've never seen him lose it," says Hancock. "He gets passionate about things, but that's different." There is certainly no phone throwing these days in No 11.
"The people who work for him say that Osborne is young enough to remember what it was like to have a boss," says Ganesh. "People say he's considerate, and as a result of this he engenders a lot of residual personal loyalty. He's developed a parliamentary following – MPs like Greg Hands, Claire Perry, Matt Hancock – all of whom worked for Osborne at some stage and who have retained their former loyalty."
If he ever did decide to stand for leader, an Osbornite cabal would already be in place.
Osborne was born in 1971, the eldest of four brothers in a liberal-leaning, bohemian family. His mother, Felicity Loxton-Peacock, was a former debutante turned anti-Vietnam protester who eventually switched to voting Conservative after Margaret Thatcher became leader. His father, also liberal-minded, set up the family wallpaper business around the kitchen table in Notting Hill. It was, Osborne has said in the past, "a metropolitan upbringing [rather] than a landed, shire-county upbringing" of the kind David Cameron enjoyed.
The fact that he turned out a Tory is a cause of some amusement among his extended family. His brothers – Adam, Benedict and Theo – have all followed less conventional paths. Adam Osborne is a doctor who was suspended from the General Medical Council for six months last year after improperly prescribing drugs to a cocaine-addicted escort. He converted to Islam to marry his wife Rahala in 2009. Benedict is a graphic designer, while Theo runs an online bookmaking company.
As a child Osborne was, by his own admission, "the most sensible out of all the kids. I was extremely well behaved." His love of learning earned him the nickname "Knowledge" from his siblings.
In reality the name his parents gave him was Gideon, which he famously chose to drop at the age of 13 for the more straightforward George (his grandfather's name) because "life was easier as a George". Some of his classmates at St Paul's believe Osborne made the change in order to sound less exotic and "more prime ministerial". "It certainly falls in with my profile of someone who was already thinking about his image," says one.
At school he was clearly bright, but not especially popular. His personal tutor Mike Seigel remembers him as "one of the most talented students I came across in a quarter of a century. He had a determination to do well." Osborne went on to Oxford, where he edited the university magazine Isis in 1992 and produced a special edition partially printed on hemp paper to indicate the importance of "green issues".
Unlike his future boss William Hague, who had graduated from Magdalen a decade before, Osborne did not get involved in the Oxford Union. But as a 19-year-old he did stand for the post of Entertainments Representative in his college junior common room (JCR) along with a friend. It was here, perhaps, amid the cut-price beer and freshers' high jinks, that he got his first taste for politics. In fact his electioneering was so enthusiastic his rival for the position wrote a letter of complaint to the JCR vice president outlining Osborne's underhand tactics.
The letter, dated 15 November 1990, reads: "I wish to lodge a complaint concerning electorate malpractice on the part of Messrs George Osborne and [the friend] on three counts, namely:
1 The dissemination of five different wordings of posters, instead of the mandatory two.
2 The posting of the above on places other than noticeboards, such as doors and walls.
3 The attempt on the part of Mr Osborne to pervert the democratic process by electioneering in the JCR.
I would urge that these matters be considered with a view to possible disqualification."
The complaint is signed by RD Harding, who went on to win the election. Rupert Harding, who now works at a language school in Finland, is rather embarrassed by the strident tone of his letter. "I have little to no recollection of the campaign," he says. "Perverting the democratic process I think meant going up to people after Neighbours and asking them to vote for him." Osborne was, in any case, roundly defeated at the hustings.
At Oxford, Osborne's contemporaries remember him as one of a clique of "braying public schoolboys". His friends saw a different side – "My recollection of George is that he was a nice bloke, quite approachable, shy and very bright," says one – but his membership of the notorious Bullingdon Club did little to dampen the perception of elitism. Infamous for its riotous behaviour, the society is open only to sons of aristocratic families or the super-rich. The initiation process was to down a bottle of tequila while standing on a table. That immortal Bullingdon photo would come back to haunt him.
The goings-on of the Bullingdon are extremely secretive, but one of Osborne's contemporaries, who has never spoken to the press, told me what happened after that photograph of Osborne, standing imperious in bow tie and tails, was taken. "We got on a double-decker bus and drove to Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire," he says. "It started to get really out of control. I remember a guest being comatose on the lawn, being tended to by a butler who was applying cold towels to his forehead, trying to bring him round. One of the guys got into a fist fight because he was Italian and a football match was on and there'd been some racial taunting. Plates had been thrown. As usual, it escalated. It was a group of young, testosterone- and alcohol-fuelled men, many of whom don't ever have to work. I think George was mildly alarmed. He was enjoying the food and wine, enjoying watching the football, and I just remember him looking at me with raised eyebrows at what was going on. I never saw him take drugs."
On a different occasion with Osborne also present, he remembers one Bullingdon member "trying to snort lines of coke from the top of an open-top bus and the bus was speeding along so it kept blowing away. I said to him: 'You're stupid. It's blowing away,' and his response was: 'I can afford it.'"
Another time Osborne and the other Bullingdon members went for a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Berkshire where, coincidentally, the comedian Lenny Henry was having dinner with his then-wife Dawn French. "We interrupted the whole evening," the source says. "A couple of the boys started getting obnoxious and talking about their family wealth and Henry said: 'Actually, sod off.' Then there was a slight altercation when a member put a cigar out on someone else's lapel and it turned into a fight and furniture was broken. It was horrible, horrible. We used to smash everything up and then pay a cheque, saying: 'It's OK; we can pay for it.' It was pretty shocking."
How did an undergraduate who supposedly smashed up furniture and downed tequila get from there to become chancellor of the exchequer? "In a sense there's no difference between the Bullingdon George and the chancellor George: they both simply wanted to be the best," explains one former colleague. "Being the best at Oxford, in his eyes, meant joining the Bullingdon."
Osborne has remained understandably tight-lipped about his youthful excesses, insisting, even when the photograph of him with vice-girl Natalie Rowe emerged in 2005, that MPs are entitled to have lived a life pre-politics. But it certainly appears from this account that Osborne liked to cut loose and have a good time. And it seems an element of that has stayed with him, despite the guardedness he is now careful to assume in public. When I ask a senior coalition colleague how Osborne made the transition from party animal to sober-minded politician, the reply comes: "I don't think anyone's ever believed he's sober. I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to relive the youth he never had."
A few years ago, at the wedding of his brother-in-law Toby Howell (Osborne's author wife, Frances, is the daughter of Conservative peer Lord Howell and the couple have two children, Luke, 10, and Liberty, eight), Osborne was, according to onlookers, encouraged to play a game of "pass the ice cube" with fellow guests. Osborne gamely agreed and is said to have found himself mouth-to-mouth with the pop star Geri Halliwell, who was there as the girlfriend of Henry Beckwith, the son of a millionaire property developer. Posterity does not record the reaction of either party. By all accounts, Frances would have taken it in good part. "She's very much her own woman," says an acquaintance. "They both lead quite independent lives."
More seriously, Osborne's taste for the high life also led to one of the worst errors of his political career. In October 2008, it was claimed that Osborne had tried to solicit a £50,000 donation from the Russian aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska while holidaying on the oligarch's yacht with Peter Mandelson off the coast of Corfu. Such a move would have been a violation of the law against political donations by foreign citizens. A formal complaint was made to the Electoral Commission. Although the Commission rejected the claims and Osborne has always strongly denied the allegations, he was astute enough to know that it did not look good.
"He learned the lesson of his folly in Corfu," says one former chancellor of the episode. "It was obviously very silly. But the important thing was not that he did it but that he learned his lesson and that will prevent him from doing something stupid in future."
When Natalie Rowe gave an interview last month to the Australian news channel ABC in which she claimed Osborne had taken cocaine with her, the chancellor seemed unperturbed. He did not comment on the allegations, even when there was speculation that Osborne remained so indebted to the then News of the World editor Andy Coulson for not making too much of the Rowe story when it first broke six years ago that he recommended him to Cameron as his director of communications.
"He definitely thinks he's silly to have done some of those things," says one of Osborne's close associates. "But it does speak to his deep self-confidence that he's always assumed he'll be running the country and none of this breaks his stride."
From the school debating team to the Bullingdon and all the way to No 11, Osborne has always wanted to be the best. If this means the next logical step is to become prime minister, it would be foolish to underestimate his determination to get there.
• This article was amended on 13 January 2012 to remove a name.
• This correction was published on 15 January 2012:
Our article on the chancellor, George Osborne ("The player", Observer Magazine) and a related story ("George Osborne and the Bullingdon club: what the chancellor saw", News), referred to a number of incidents involving Nathaniel Rothschild at an event at the Rothschild family home. Mr Rothschild confirms that he denies that these incidents took place. We are happy to make his position clear.
• This article was amended on 28 January 2013 to remove a photograph featuring George Osborne and Natalie Rowe following a legal complaint from Shirley Jennifer Rowe (aka Natalie Rowe).
@elizabday
Saturday 1 October 2011 14.09 BST
When George Osborne was 17, he took part in a school debate on nuclear disarmament. He was then an A-level politics student at St Paul's in London, one of England's leading public schools. On the day of the debate, a crowd of sixth-formers gathered to listen. Osborne, already perhaps displaying latent right-wing sympathies, was to argue in favour of the nuclear deterrent. On the opposing side, his classmate Sam Bain would put the case for the CND. But as Osborne rose to speak, a rugby teacher came into the classroom to say he was required to play in a match. Osborne rushed out, leaving the notes of his speech behind. "Some guy in the audience read it out and he won pretty unanimously," recalls Bain now. "So basically, I failed to win a debate against him even though he wasn't there."
For Bain the humiliation was not entirely unexpected. Even as an adolescent, Osborne seemed preternaturally composed, somehow older than his contemporaries and with a clear idea of where he was heading and of the kind of person he wanted to become.
"We were 17, and at that point he was grown-up in a way that no one else was in our year," recalls Bain, who went on to co-create Channel 4's Peep Show and the new student comedy Fresh Meat. "He looked and behaved like a man who had already decided what he was going to do with his life."
The story of how that teenager went on to become the youngest chancellor of the exchequer in 120 years is an intriguing one. It contains many surprising elements, including tales of riotous debauchery, allegations of electoral malpractice in student politics and, at one point, an intimate encounter with the pop star Geri Halliwell – more of which later. But in many ways Osborne at 40 still retains the essence of Osborne at 17. Those who work for him now remark on his exceptional political brain, on his ability to outthink his opponents with strokes of tactical genius, to present even the most dense economic argument with an eye to what will make the next day's headlines and to know, deep down in his bones, what will win over a crowd.
"I remember many times when we were faced with a tricky political problem and there'd be a lightbulb moment," says Conservative MP Matthew Hancock, who was Osborne's economic adviser and chief of staff until last year. "There's nobody else I've ever met where that moment was so obvious – his entire face would light up and he'd say: 'No, we'll do it like this.' And it was always a really brilliant idea. He's very creative."
Yet for all that he inspires loyalty among those who work for him, Osborne has enough self-knowledge to realise that his public persona is fatally lacking. On television he comes across as stilted, lacking David Cameron's easy bonhomie and banter. In parliament his youthful features – a plump, pale face; foppish dark hair – only serve to underline the impression that he is an overgrown public schoolboy not quite up to the job of steering the country through a devastating financial crisis. His privileged upbringing – Osborne is the eldest son of Sir Peter Osborne, the 17th holder of a hereditary baronetcy and the co-founder of wallpaper designers Osborne & Little – adds to the tabloid caricature of a toff with a trust fund. His mouth, according to one commentator, "is curled into a permanent sneer so it looks as if he's laughing when he announces yet more cuts to public services".
Unhelpfully, he is forever dogged by two infamous photographs from his past: the first, taken in 1992, depicts Osborne as a latter-day Sebastian Flyte, resplendent in tails and a blue bow tie as a member of Oxford University's Bullingdon Club; the second, taken a few years later, shows him grinning inanely with his arm flung casually around the shoulders of escort Natalie Rowe, surrounded by empty bottles of wine and what might or might not be a line of cocaine on the table in front of him. Those two images have reinforced – unfairly or otherwise – an overriding public sense of Osborne as a dilettante possessed of a healthy sense of entitlement. At a time when he is championing a series of swingeing austerity measures, Osborne is only too aware that such a preconception is unfortunate.
As a consequence he carefully rations his public appearances – a tactic that has earned him the nickname of "the submarine" among Tory staffers. "He stays underwater for a long time and when he appears he prepares impeccably," explains Janan Ganesh, the political correspondent for the Economist who is currently writing a biography of Osborne. "He's very open in private that he will – in his words – 'never be a man of the people'. It's a combination of material privilege and more superficial stuff, like the way he looks and sounds… During the past election campaign, for instance, he was not visible. That was because he knew he was more of an asset behind the scenes."
Osborne at 17 could win a school debate without having to appear in person, but simply by having someone else read out his cleverly structured arguments. Twenty-three years later, as chancellor of the exchequer, that same strategy has been successfully refined and redeployed, albeit on a rather larger scale.
For Sam Bain, Osborne's erstwhile debating partner, there is a feeling of inevitability about his classmate's rise to power. "I certainly feel very old now looking at him as chancellor, but thinking about how he got there, it does make sense," he says. "You probably have to be working at it for 20 years or more to achieve that. It does speak of someone who is very single-minded, and whether or not you agree with his politics, that's a pretty extraordinary thing."
To those who have observed his ascent from the outside, Osborne has always seemed to know exactly where he was going. Friends say that he is adamant that there was no steady teleological process – after graduating with a 2:1 in modern history from Magdalen College, Oxford, he toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist and pursued a number of dead-end jobs (at one point refolding towels in Selfridge's) before a friend mentioned there was a vacancy in the research department of Conservative Central Office. From there he rose to become political secretary and speechwriter to William Hague before getting elected Conservative MP for Tatton in 2001 and then being appointed shadow chancellor by Michael Howard at the precocious age of 33.
Anyone looking at that inexorable rise would be forgiven for thinking Osborne had a masterplan. "Actually at every step [of his career], he had massive doubt," says one friend. "It was: 'What the hell am I going to do next?'"
Although there might have been doubt beneath the surface, superficially he seemed ambitious from the off. During the early days of Cameron's opposition, employees at Conservative Central Office remember that Osborne's professional style was markedly different from that of the leader's. Whereas Cameron would come in each morning bluff and cheerful, greeting everyone by name, Osborne would walk straight to his office without a word and close the door.
"Osborne comes from this clever, entitled background; he's got this 'born to rule' attitude," says one peer. "He's sharp, but he's not as clever as Cameron."
The Cameron-Osborne partnership has always been close – they are godfathers to each other's children – in large part because of their differing strengths. Whereas Cameron is the public face of the party and the embodiment of a broad ideological vision, Osborne is the arch-tactician, the political chess player who delights in the game. He is in some ways the purest (and, some might say, the most terrifying) form of politician: driven not by any specific ideology but by the thrill of the chase, the exercise of statecraft and by ambition itself. "For him, politics is the biggest toy in the playground," says one acquaintance.
"His first thought is: what is the politics of this, both internal and external?" says a former adviser. "It's a great strength, but it can also be a weakness. There are plenty of times in politics where the right thing to do is not the politically correct thing to do. I think George is put on the spot in interviews when people say to him: 'Why are you in politics? How do you want this country to be?' That shines a telling light on him as a person and a thinker. His wiring is political and that means it is contextual, so his answer would depend on the prevailing political mood."
Occasionally his obsession with day-to-day tactics rather than an overarching strategy has led to criticism within the Tory ranks. During the 2010 election campaign, which Osborne was masterminding, he produced a "Top Tory of the Day" T-shirt for any staffer who came up with the cleverest publicity coup. "He loves that kind of stuff," says one political commentator. "He can put doing over your opponent ahead of the need for an underlying vision."
His Liberal Democrat colleagues in the coalition government talk darkly of Treasury briefings against them, always carried out by underlings rather than Osborne himself, who is careful to remain charming in person. "Of course it's partly Treasury arrogance – the institutional inability to give any other department credit," says Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott, who quit as a House of Lords Treasury spokesman earlier this year in protest at Osborne's failure to take strong enough action on bank bonuses. "Osborne is a very, very clever operator. He's got a real eye for the political main chance."
And yet Cameron – who is five years older than his chancellor – has been canny enough to harness this to his own advantage: he already has the advice of Steve Hilton (Cameron's director of strategy) for blue-sky thoughts about Big Societies and the like. Osborne, by contrast, provides the hard-headed calculation. He also has more liberal instincts than Cameron on issues such as abortion and gay adoption. A low-tax, small-state Conservative, he is said to find some of Cameron's money-guzzling social and environmental initiatives baffling. And Osborne can be radical: as a new backbencher, he proposed that the royal family should pay rent for Kensington Palace. It is for these reasons, says Ganesh, that "Cameron absolutely counts on him". They are a complementary partnership.
Unlike Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, whose alleged gentlemen's agreement in 1994 over who would stand for the leadership became part of New Labour political mythology, Osborne insists he struck no such bargain. "There was no deal over the rabbit polenta," he said in an interview six years ago with the Daily Telegraph. That, of course, does not mean he has no ambitions for the leadership – quite the contrary.
"To be a politician at that level, you have to take yourself very seriously and believe you can be leader," says a former Conservative MP who used to work for Osborne. "But I think they learned a lesson from the Blair-Brown years. And that was: never, ever let it happen to us. They are genuinely brothers-in-arms. They've always both just put winning at the top of their list, even if their outlooks and priorities are different."
The door between No 10 and the Treasury at No 11 is always open – in stark contrast to some previous regimes – and the prime minister trusts Osborne enough to allow him to chair the daily 4pm strategy meeting with Cameron's inner team if he is away.
"They were always very close," says one former Conservative cabinet minister, "but David was always clearly the dominant figure in that partnership. When I first met George and David for discussions, George would be silent. He would occasionally chip in, but it was evident that there was a lack of assertiveness and self-confidence. I think that's changed. He's grown in stature very encouragingly, because he needed to if he was going to be effective."
How would his lack of confidence manifest itself? "You'd notice it. There was a certain nervousness."
Again, there is a disparity here between the public and private Osborne. In public he comes across as being almost too confident for his own good; smoothly assured that his deficit-reduction plan is the right course of action even though almost no other western nation has followed suit and some economists continue to predict fiscal measures will cause sluggish growth and high unemployment for decades.
According to one senior adviser: "That's when his political instincts come straight through and he says: 'OK, I'm going to take some flak for this; I'll fight my corner.' I've not seen any impression of any particular gloominess. He's not often shy of political jousting." He is also well-regarded on the international stage, counting Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner among his admirers (not bad for someone who used to have a beginner's guide to economics in his office).
In private, however, there are signs that his self-assurance in parliament is something of an act. At parties he often appears uncomfortable and guarded, as though constantly on the lookout for a potential conversational banana skin. People who meet him outside the House of Commons find him difficult to connect with. "There's an emotional distance there," says one. "Everyone who works with him says he's so charming, but I must admit I've always found him rather charmless."
And it is true that in the corridors of power it is difficult to find anyone with a bad word to say about him on a personal level. Even his most strident critics admit he is likeable, even if his policies aren't.
In coalition he has, according to one Liberal Democrat, been "a courteous colleague. He's a very smooth operator". After the election Osborne made a point of going to business secretary Vince Cable's office to introduce himself, even though it is customary for the more junior minister to make the effort. "He is always polite, quick and very sharp," says one Liberal Democrat. This in spite of the fact that, according to one Conservative peer, Osborne finds the constraints of coalition "extremely irksome". His relationship with Cable is said to be good – at least on the surface – but, says the Lib Dem: "We have to warn Vince about Osborne, because when someone's being nice to him he lets his guard drop."
Within his close team of young advisers – chief of staff Rupert Harrison, special advisers Eleanor Shawcross and Ramesh Chhabra are all in their late 20s or early 30s – he inspires almost fanatical loyalty. They are keen to stress his quick wit and dark, acerbic humour (although the best Osborne joke I heard was his remark during a Christmas party attended by the rapper 50 Cent. He is said to have quipped to guests: "That's Mr Cent to you"), his sympathetic attitude to mothers who need to knock off early if their child is ill and his willingness to give career advice to up-and-coming politicos.
Time and again I am told that "the worst thing you can do in a meeting with George is not to speak your mind". No one I talk to has ever seen him get angry, which suggests a remarkable level of self-control. "No, I've never seen him lose it," says Hancock. "He gets passionate about things, but that's different." There is certainly no phone throwing these days in No 11.
"The people who work for him say that Osborne is young enough to remember what it was like to have a boss," says Ganesh. "People say he's considerate, and as a result of this he engenders a lot of residual personal loyalty. He's developed a parliamentary following – MPs like Greg Hands, Claire Perry, Matt Hancock – all of whom worked for Osborne at some stage and who have retained their former loyalty."
If he ever did decide to stand for leader, an Osbornite cabal would already be in place.
Osborne was born in 1971, the eldest of four brothers in a liberal-leaning, bohemian family. His mother, Felicity Loxton-Peacock, was a former debutante turned anti-Vietnam protester who eventually switched to voting Conservative after Margaret Thatcher became leader. His father, also liberal-minded, set up the family wallpaper business around the kitchen table in Notting Hill. It was, Osborne has said in the past, "a metropolitan upbringing [rather] than a landed, shire-county upbringing" of the kind David Cameron enjoyed.
The fact that he turned out a Tory is a cause of some amusement among his extended family. His brothers – Adam, Benedict and Theo – have all followed less conventional paths. Adam Osborne is a doctor who was suspended from the General Medical Council for six months last year after improperly prescribing drugs to a cocaine-addicted escort. He converted to Islam to marry his wife Rahala in 2009. Benedict is a graphic designer, while Theo runs an online bookmaking company.
As a child Osborne was, by his own admission, "the most sensible out of all the kids. I was extremely well behaved." His love of learning earned him the nickname "Knowledge" from his siblings.
In reality the name his parents gave him was Gideon, which he famously chose to drop at the age of 13 for the more straightforward George (his grandfather's name) because "life was easier as a George". Some of his classmates at St Paul's believe Osborne made the change in order to sound less exotic and "more prime ministerial". "It certainly falls in with my profile of someone who was already thinking about his image," says one.
At school he was clearly bright, but not especially popular. His personal tutor Mike Seigel remembers him as "one of the most talented students I came across in a quarter of a century. He had a determination to do well." Osborne went on to Oxford, where he edited the university magazine Isis in 1992 and produced a special edition partially printed on hemp paper to indicate the importance of "green issues".
Unlike his future boss William Hague, who had graduated from Magdalen a decade before, Osborne did not get involved in the Oxford Union. But as a 19-year-old he did stand for the post of Entertainments Representative in his college junior common room (JCR) along with a friend. It was here, perhaps, amid the cut-price beer and freshers' high jinks, that he got his first taste for politics. In fact his electioneering was so enthusiastic his rival for the position wrote a letter of complaint to the JCR vice president outlining Osborne's underhand tactics.
The letter, dated 15 November 1990, reads: "I wish to lodge a complaint concerning electorate malpractice on the part of Messrs George Osborne and [the friend] on three counts, namely:
1 The dissemination of five different wordings of posters, instead of the mandatory two.
2 The posting of the above on places other than noticeboards, such as doors and walls.
3 The attempt on the part of Mr Osborne to pervert the democratic process by electioneering in the JCR.
I would urge that these matters be considered with a view to possible disqualification."
The complaint is signed by RD Harding, who went on to win the election. Rupert Harding, who now works at a language school in Finland, is rather embarrassed by the strident tone of his letter. "I have little to no recollection of the campaign," he says. "Perverting the democratic process I think meant going up to people after Neighbours and asking them to vote for him." Osborne was, in any case, roundly defeated at the hustings.
At Oxford, Osborne's contemporaries remember him as one of a clique of "braying public schoolboys". His friends saw a different side – "My recollection of George is that he was a nice bloke, quite approachable, shy and very bright," says one – but his membership of the notorious Bullingdon Club did little to dampen the perception of elitism. Infamous for its riotous behaviour, the society is open only to sons of aristocratic families or the super-rich. The initiation process was to down a bottle of tequila while standing on a table. That immortal Bullingdon photo would come back to haunt him.
The goings-on of the Bullingdon are extremely secretive, but one of Osborne's contemporaries, who has never spoken to the press, told me what happened after that photograph of Osborne, standing imperious in bow tie and tails, was taken. "We got on a double-decker bus and drove to Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire," he says. "It started to get really out of control. I remember a guest being comatose on the lawn, being tended to by a butler who was applying cold towels to his forehead, trying to bring him round. One of the guys got into a fist fight because he was Italian and a football match was on and there'd been some racial taunting. Plates had been thrown. As usual, it escalated. It was a group of young, testosterone- and alcohol-fuelled men, many of whom don't ever have to work. I think George was mildly alarmed. He was enjoying the food and wine, enjoying watching the football, and I just remember him looking at me with raised eyebrows at what was going on. I never saw him take drugs."
On a different occasion with Osborne also present, he remembers one Bullingdon member "trying to snort lines of coke from the top of an open-top bus and the bus was speeding along so it kept blowing away. I said to him: 'You're stupid. It's blowing away,' and his response was: 'I can afford it.'"
Another time Osborne and the other Bullingdon members went for a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Berkshire where, coincidentally, the comedian Lenny Henry was having dinner with his then-wife Dawn French. "We interrupted the whole evening," the source says. "A couple of the boys started getting obnoxious and talking about their family wealth and Henry said: 'Actually, sod off.' Then there was a slight altercation when a member put a cigar out on someone else's lapel and it turned into a fight and furniture was broken. It was horrible, horrible. We used to smash everything up and then pay a cheque, saying: 'It's OK; we can pay for it.' It was pretty shocking."
How did an undergraduate who supposedly smashed up furniture and downed tequila get from there to become chancellor of the exchequer? "In a sense there's no difference between the Bullingdon George and the chancellor George: they both simply wanted to be the best," explains one former colleague. "Being the best at Oxford, in his eyes, meant joining the Bullingdon."
Osborne has remained understandably tight-lipped about his youthful excesses, insisting, even when the photograph of him with vice-girl Natalie Rowe emerged in 2005, that MPs are entitled to have lived a life pre-politics. But it certainly appears from this account that Osborne liked to cut loose and have a good time. And it seems an element of that has stayed with him, despite the guardedness he is now careful to assume in public. When I ask a senior coalition colleague how Osborne made the transition from party animal to sober-minded politician, the reply comes: "I don't think anyone's ever believed he's sober. I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to relive the youth he never had."
A few years ago, at the wedding of his brother-in-law Toby Howell (Osborne's author wife, Frances, is the daughter of Conservative peer Lord Howell and the couple have two children, Luke, 10, and Liberty, eight), Osborne was, according to onlookers, encouraged to play a game of "pass the ice cube" with fellow guests. Osborne gamely agreed and is said to have found himself mouth-to-mouth with the pop star Geri Halliwell, who was there as the girlfriend of Henry Beckwith, the son of a millionaire property developer. Posterity does not record the reaction of either party. By all accounts, Frances would have taken it in good part. "She's very much her own woman," says an acquaintance. "They both lead quite independent lives."
More seriously, Osborne's taste for the high life also led to one of the worst errors of his political career. In October 2008, it was claimed that Osborne had tried to solicit a £50,000 donation from the Russian aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska while holidaying on the oligarch's yacht with Peter Mandelson off the coast of Corfu. Such a move would have been a violation of the law against political donations by foreign citizens. A formal complaint was made to the Electoral Commission. Although the Commission rejected the claims and Osborne has always strongly denied the allegations, he was astute enough to know that it did not look good.
"He learned the lesson of his folly in Corfu," says one former chancellor of the episode. "It was obviously very silly. But the important thing was not that he did it but that he learned his lesson and that will prevent him from doing something stupid in future."
When Natalie Rowe gave an interview last month to the Australian news channel ABC in which she claimed Osborne had taken cocaine with her, the chancellor seemed unperturbed. He did not comment on the allegations, even when there was speculation that Osborne remained so indebted to the then News of the World editor Andy Coulson for not making too much of the Rowe story when it first broke six years ago that he recommended him to Cameron as his director of communications.
"He definitely thinks he's silly to have done some of those things," says one of Osborne's close associates. "But it does speak to his deep self-confidence that he's always assumed he'll be running the country and none of this breaks his stride."
From the school debating team to the Bullingdon and all the way to No 11, Osborne has always wanted to be the best. If this means the next logical step is to become prime minister, it would be foolish to underestimate his determination to get there.
• This article was amended on 13 January 2012 to remove a name.
• This correction was published on 15 January 2012:
Our article on the chancellor, George Osborne ("The player", Observer Magazine) and a related story ("George Osborne and the Bullingdon club: what the chancellor saw", News), referred to a number of incidents involving Nathaniel Rothschild at an event at the Rothschild family home. Mr Rothschild confirms that he denies that these incidents took place. We are happy to make his position clear.
• This article was amended on 28 January 2013 to remove a photograph featuring George Osborne and Natalie Rowe following a legal complaint from Shirley Jennifer Rowe (aka Natalie Rowe).
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)