Where is George Osborne?

Jeremy Paxman made a good point last night on Newsnight (43 mins in) when he put to George Osborne in an interview that Cameron is making all the economic speeches at the moment and that he is nowhere to be seen.

Osborne unconvincingly rejected Paxman's argument that there was a problem and looked uncomfortable throughout the line of questioning.

Osborne said it was the most ridiculous line of questioning he had ever heard from Paxman but i disagree. As Paxman noted, since the Deripaska yachtgate affair, Osborne has made only one major speech on the economy whereas Cameron has made nine.

Why is this?

It is not convincing to argue, as Osborne did, that he has been present at the speeches Cameron has made and that he has given multiple interviews to newspapers and broadcasters.

To my mind there are three reasons why Osborne is being sidelined, and sidelined he is:

1) Cameron has lost faith in his Shadow Chancellor who has had his reputation damaged over the Deripaska yachtgate affair, despite there being no evidence of wrongdoing, just an error of judgement.

2) Cameron has decided to increase his own coverage, at the expense of Osborne, because, as Mike Smithson over at PoliticalBetting.com has argued, the Tories perform better in the opinion polls the more coverage Cameron receives.

3) Cameron has seized control over economic announcements because the economy has become the key issue in politics. Accordingly he wants to show he is taking a lead and, i would hazard a guess, does not want to suffer the fate of Nick Clegg who is all too often anonymous playing second fiddle to Vince Cable when it comes to media coverage of Lib Dems on economic issues.

I'm inclined to believe the reason Osborne has been sidelined is nothing to do with the negative first possible reason, but has more to do with the second and third reasons. As i have argued before, Osborne's position is safe and he has a close political relationship with his leader.

However, Osborne cannot like being sidelined. His awkward manner in the interview with Paxman confirmed this to me. If Cameron does not start giving Osborne the prime speech-making slots then he is making trouble for himself as more and more people will start to ask the same question as Paxman. A great deal in politics is about perception and it is not difficult to see why it looks like Cameron has sidelined Osborne because of a lack of faith, even if this is just imagined.

Moreover, the Telegraph reported yesterday that "Mr Cameron has privately complained that his shadow cabinet is a one-man band centred on him because the rest of his colleagues are virtually unknown to voters." If this is how Cameron feels he'd do well to bring Osborne back to the fore once again.

People are talking and this is undermining Osborne. This needs to stop.

UPDATE: James Forsyth over at the Spectator's CoffeeHouse blog posted yesterday about the perils of a 'Cameron centric strategy'. It is well-worth a read.