Wikileaks cables: George Osborne 'lightweight and inexperienced'

Shadow chancellor's high-pitched voice contributes to view that he lacks gravitas, senior Conservatives tell US officials

• Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 23.00 GMT
• Article history

 

George Osborne speaking at the Conservative conference this year. Wikileaks cables said his high-pitched voice contributed to view that he lacked gravitas. Photograph: Dave Gadd/Allstar Picture Library

 

George Osborne lacked gravitas before the election and was seen as a political lightweight because of his "high-pitched vocal delivery", according to private Conservative polling relayed to US embassy diplomats.

In a candid account, senior party figures told the embassy that the future chancellor had been stopped from making an emergency statement at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 in light of his weaknesses.

The striking criticisms of Osborne are disclosed in an account of the 2008 Tory party conference by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of mission at the US embassy.
A Cameron insider told US officials in a private meeting that it had been decided Cameron should deliver the speech "as private party polling indicated that the public feel Osborne lacks the necessary 'gravitas'. Somewhat unfairly, party officials thought, polling indicated that Osborne was seen as lightweight and inexperienced, in part due to his high-pitched vocal delivery."

The senior Tory said Gordon Brown's warning at the Labour conference that the financial crisis meant it was "no time for a novice" had struck home. "This party insider also revealed that Brown's charge that Cameron was a 'novice' at a time of crisis had gained significant traction with voters," the cable said. "Internal Tory spot polling had found, worryingly for the Conservatives, that contrary to the general consensus, if an election were held the next day, Gordon Brown would be re-elected, albeit with a vastly reduced Labour majority."

LeBaron said of Cameron's conference speech: "If Cameron's aim was to convince the public that he has serious policies and will bring changes, then he succeeded in the eyes of much of the press. Cameron may have faced criticism that his speech failed to lay out, in specifics, the party's plans for government but no doubt he is trying to avoid the fate of previous leaders who, having set out a detailed platform far in advance of any general election, later had their best ideas taken by the Labour government."
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