BRITAIN: George Osborne has capped a meteoric rise through Conservative ranks with his nomination as shadow chancellor yesterday, a promotion that makes him a possible contender for the party leadership, although it is a prospect he will not discuss.
The 33-year-old MP sits for the Cheshire seat of Tatton, formerly held by the independent Martin Bell, who unseated disgraced Conservative Neil Hamilton. He became shadow chief secretary to the Treasury in his predecessor Oliver Letwin's team and was influential in drawing up the Tories' tax-cutting proposals for last week's general election.
As shadow chancellor, his main challenge will be taking on Gordon Brown, Britain's longest serving chancellor, in the Commons, an enormous task which none of his predecessors have had any success at.
Expectations will be high, not least because both he and David Cameron, who becomes shadow education secretary, are spoken of in the same breath as a Conservative version of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - modernisers ready to take over when older colleagues retire or stand aside.
The pair have also been linked with the so-called Notting Hill set, a group of youngish Conservatives associated with Mr Howard and whose metropolitan views contrast with those of the party traditionalists. Mr Osborne said his role would not be just to "bash" Mr Brown, though he believes Labour will have to raise taxes during this parliament, but to broaden the Conservatives' appeal and "win over people who have lost trust in Labour".
His comments appeared to reflect acceptance among some senior Tory MPs that negative attacks on Labour did little to help the party.
Though heir to the Osborne and Little wallpaper fortune, and a lifelong Conservative, the new shadow chancellor has little ideological sympathy with the party's Thatcherite wing.
He has argued that the political battles of the 1980s are over and that today's electorate behave "more like consumers".
Elected to parliament in 2001, he was previously political secretary to William Hague, the former Conservative leader. He had worked in the political office in Downing Street for the last two years of John Major's administration and was a special adviser at the ministry of agriculture.
The son of a baronet, he is said by some to be "too posh" to ever be party leader. However, his intelligence and deft handling of the media have earned colleagues' respect.
He said on Tuesday that he had not contemplated the leadership. Should he do so, he has had some practice: while rehearsing Mr Hague for prime minister's questions, colleagues say he used to do a brilliant impersonation of Mr Blair. - (Financial Times Service)