In the middle of 2007, I had lunch with the boys who were about to run the economy. We were both new to this. I’d just joined the Guardian as economics leader writer and, with no great perceptiveness, could see that Gordon Brown would not be stopping long at No 10. To learn what the Conservatives had in store for us, I went to see George Osborne’s team.
Given how many meals ago it was, aspects of that meeting remain very clear in my mind. I entered a Japanese restaurant (now defunct) in Westminster to find a small cluster of young men, otherwise known as the shadow chancellor’s brains. Before too long, nearly all of these advisers would be running the government and writing Budgets – but none of that was obvious that afternoon.
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