George's Sheffield moment

George Osbonre had a bit of a disastrous encounter with Andrew Marr, where he was asked, repeatedly, about his claim that he would somehow manage to find £8 BILLION to spend on the NHS.

Marr, understandably, asked him how howas going to do this.

Osborne waffled and evaded. So Marr asked him again, and again. And again.

In total, he asked George Osborne how he was going to fund this spending increase (About 8% of the current NHS budget), FIFTEEN times. And Osborne failed to answer.

In 1992, Neil Kinnock is credited (unfairly) with losing the general election for Labour at the infamous Sheffield rally.

If the Conservatives lose the election - rather, if they fail to secure enough seats to let them cobble together a coalition - then it will probably be immortalised as the moment it happened; the moment the second most important figure in the party, asked a question about a promise he has just made, with his party's (grossly exaggerated) reputation for economic competence riding on his performance, was unable to answer.

Go back to making vacuum cleaners, George!

Osborne's dreadful performance has been mocked, rightly, in most media.   Yet the Mail, mysteriously, neglected to mention how Generous George couldn't answer a fairly simple question in spite of being asked (approximately) 500 times.

Instead, this very impartial and unbiased newspaper headlined their account of the interview:

You're as posh as me! Osborne tells Harman the class attacks 'wear thin' when they both went to the same private school

The story that follows even mentions health spending, and how it is funded:

Mr Osborne insisted, however, that the Conservatives had shown in government that they were able to make the savings necessary to deliver additional funding for the NHS. 

'We have a balanced plan to grow our economy, to make savings in government including in welfare to fund our NHS each and every year,' he said. 

'We have to make similar savings each year that we have made for five years of this parliament but for two years. 

'We have a track record in this parliament where we found almost £8 billion extra in real terms for the National Health Service in very, very difficult economic circumstances so we have proved our mettle, we have proved our ability to stand behind the National Health Service in this parliament. We can do it in the next.'

But no mention of how he failed to explain where he is going to find 8 billion a year.

Or  how he is going to 'deliver additional funding' by requiring the NHS to find 22 billion in 'efficiencies,' effectively cutting its budget by over 20%.