OSBORNE’S DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS LOSE FRIENDS AT HOME AND ABROAD
SEEING as its barely a month since French President Nicolas Sarkozy unceremoniously told David Cameron to “shut up” over the euro,
Sarko’s finance minister Francois Baroin is unlikely to have taken kindly to chancellor George Osborne’s latest attack on the single currency yesterday.
Going only very slightly off script in his Autumn Statement to parliament yesterday lunchtime, Osborne claimed that “the entire European continent is pricing itself out of the world economy” – and then promptly flew off to Brussels for yesterday’s latest round of Eurozone wrangling.
Despite unseasonably warm weather for the time of year as temperatures in the EU’s de facto capital reached nine degrees Celsius, Osborne’s comments surely mean he guaranteed himself a frosty welcome from his European counterparts yesterday.
TYRE-D OF GEORGE
THE chancellor also seems to be losing friends much closer to home, if a very public attack by a Sheffield garage is anything to go by.
As it launched a closing-down sale, Billy Boy Tyres decided to go out with a bang, emblazoning its forecourt with a sign personally thanking George Osborne for its bad fortune.
Located just 50 miles from the chancellor’s Tatton constituency, we can only assume Osborne would be excluded from the “mega” discounts on offer if he was unlucky enough to blow a tyre near Billy Boy’s emporium…
IT BEGINS AT WORK
IF mobile phone donations and web links hadn’t made giving to charity easy enough, Oxfam has now gone one step further – arranging pick-ups from companies at Canary Wharf.
First past the post to boost its charity credentials is the FSA, a partner of the initiative. “We encourage our staff to reduce waste and to be resource- and energy-efficient, both within the workplace and as members of the
COMMUNITY,” SAID THE FSA’S CLAIRE HARVEY.
Get yourself to your nearest Oxfam to see what employees at the City regulator have going spare.