Cabinet ministers evoke a wide variety of judgments, but I cannot recall anything quite so caustic as that of the celebrated journalist Bernard Levin, on the foreign secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, in 1959. In a review in the Spectator of a book about the early 19th century statesman Lord Castlereagh, Levin wrote: "The real mystery, in fact, is not why Castlereagh cut his throat, but why Mr Selwyn Lloyd has not." Not long after that, Lloyd was elevated to the chancellorship by Harold Macmillan.
My dissatisfaction with the chancellorship of George Osborne has not diminished with time, but even I should find it a little extreme to suggest that he fall on his sword. Nor do I think any longer that that great fan of Macmillan, David Cameron, should sack him. No, I think Osborne should remain in place until he faces the verdict of the electorate: a verdict that ought to be damning.
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