George Osborne at Mansion House: muddled, boastful and upstaged | Alex Andreou

When the chancellor of the exchequer made his annual speech at the lord mayor's Mansion House dinner on Thursday evening, George Osborne was more than a little upstaged. The Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, had just given a dense and well-delivered speech, which included a surprise announcement about interest rates. Osborne's address was the economics equivalent of Joe Pasquale taking the stage after Bill Hicks.

There was, admittedly, more meat in the chancellor's speech than many had expected from what has become known as a "zombie government". True to that description, however, it seemed to involve much aimless shambling in various, often contradictory directions in search of brains.