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(satire)

Senior figures in the Conservative Party have turned on the Chancellor, George Osborne saying they no longer regard him as the automatic successor to David Cameron as the country’s next Prime Minister and that he is only competent to fulfil a relatively insignificant, minor position in government such as running the nation’s economy into the ground.

Recent U-turns by Osborne on his budget as well as his failed attempts to uncover damaging information about Ed Balls over the banking scandal have prompted a growing number of Tories to say the chancellor should not succeed Cameron as leader of the party and he should be allowed to continue to do what he does best – screwing up the nation’s economy and ruining any future prospect of an economic recovery in the UK.

One well-placed Tory said:

It is increasingly difficult to see George as leader because he is so obviously and gut-wrenchingly crap at everything he does – so it’s probably better he remains in his obscure post as chancellor and continues to do a relatively unimportant job in government like being responsible for a tanking economy – something which let’s face it he’s rather good at.

Senior Tory Party sources say the ‘under the bus’ candidate now is William Hague, who has distinguished himself in the eyes of the party heirarchy by doing absolutely nothing of note as foreign secretary except drinking wine and making small talk at diplomatic cocktail parties occasionally and would therefore make an excellent Tory Prime Minister.

One senior Tory Party source said:

William doesn’t seem to have done anything at all in his job – apart from maybe arranging for Libya to descend to the point of a catastrophic civil war – but doing nothing is at least one step better than most of his cabinet colleagues who are all managing to botch up just about everything they lay their hands on.

Doubts about Mr Osborne began to crystallise this week when top Tories realised the chancellor had done so many u-turns while simultaneously applying the hand-brake to the country’s economy that he was going round and round in circles so fast he was doing donuts and smoke was starting to come out of his ears.

However Mr Osborne’s aides are adamant that the chancellor would be able to be just as successful at running the country into the ground as PM as he is at running the country into the ground as chancellor. One said:

George had a job as a towel folder* in Selfridge’s before he was put in charge of running the country’s economy, which is at least one proper job more than Cameron had before he became PM.

Osborne’s counterattack was undermined by a Conservative party briefing note, released shortly after Bob Diamond told the Treasury select committee on Wednesday he believed Labour ministers could have been involved in the Barclays Libor scandal.

The Tory note was headlined:

Bob Diamond evidence points finger at Gordon Brown, Ed Balls and Shriti Vadera as the ‘senior figures’ trying to fiddle Libor – but our George is still completely and utterly crap.

* This is actually true – George Osborne – towel folder in Selfridges.

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