George Osborne's final diary entry

Sadly you may have heard about the minibus accident in Mumbai, in which a British High Commission minibus driving journalists covering our visit, two members of David's team, and High Commission staff, hit a woman who is now critically ill in hospital.

As David said, we have all been deeply shocked and I know that the High Commission is doing all it can to help the victim, and working very closely with the police to help them with their investigation.

In Mumbai we met business leaders. We saw TCS, whose UK operations employ seven thousand people, and HSBC threw us a lunch with about twenty companies, who were telling us how they are 'going global'. India isn't just a cheap back office. Of course British business is investing in India, but Indian business is investing in Britain too. And the message coming out of Mumbai and Delhi is that we can do much more - as I said in my speech yesterday (download a pdf of 'Open markets, free and fair trade' speech).

India is in business. It's got two key things going for it that mean it's here to stay. The first is demographics. India is a young country - half of the population is under 25. Compare that to China, with its ageing population thanks to the "one child" policy. The second is democracy, which the Indians I met are intensely proud of.

Of course there are challenges. We discussed them with the political leaders here in Delhi yesterday. The Prime Minister threw us lunch, and we met Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul, and the leader of the opposition, LK Advani.  They were all very interested to hear from the new Conservative leadership.

And our final visit of the trip, to IIT Delhi, one of India's top universities. That blew away the idea that India's universities can't compete with the best in the world. The students and faculty were impressive. And the young bosses of two new IT spin offs gave presentations showing the very strong links between the university and the entrepreneurial world, which were just as impressive as anything I saw in Silicon Valley earlier in the year. That is certainly  omething we can learn from.

Finally I gave my speech to the Confederation of Indian Industry, on the case for free and fair trade. CII met David in the UK in the spring, and have a strong friendship with Conservative Friends of India. If I've learnt one thing here, it's that Indian business is taking on the world - and that's a good thing.

And now back to Britain where it seems the Government is falling to pieces. Getting the morning news summary has been a highlight of the trip.

Previous entry in this series.

George Osborne's Diary: Part 4

George Osborne has now arrived in India.  His diary continues below.

And so to India, where the differences and contrasts are startling. On the road from the airport, the expensive cars drive past slums. From the window of ICICI bank's 11th floor was a panorama of poverty. I was there for breakfast with top Indian businessmen and women.

For the first half an hour they told me of their investments in the UK. We discussed barriers to more Indian investment. It turns out India is the third biggest source of FDI into Britain. Only later did we get on to the investment going the other way. And, they explained, trying to divide the two is increasingly difficult. A pharmaceuticals boss who has bought a Huddersfield factory told me how business was up in India because of the foothold in England, but business was up in Huddersfield too, as their costs had been brought down by the restructuring. This is globalisation in action.

From breakfast to the stock exchange. It's the third biggest in the world by volume of trades - bigger than London. And there is no concentration of brokers - the members of the exchange trade from over 300 Indian cities. That's what some predicted would happen in the internet age. And it is: in India.

The scale of this place takes your breath away. Last month, Indian railways placed a job ad for 48,000 vacancies. That's the size of a small town. They had 7 million applicants. The whole population of the North West.

And on to meet David Cameron, and accompany him as he opened a factory outside Pune. He's blogging, too. The ceremony, of dancing girls, elephants and dancing diggers was like I had never seen before. And the factory is another mark of globalisation. More jobs for locals, working with Indian and British management and technicians, for the Indian and export market.

Finally to dinner with business leaders. The end of my first day in India. What an experience!

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George Osborne's Diary: The first, second day and third days in Japan

George Osborne's Diary: Part 3

This is the third part of George Osborne's Diary.  Links to part one and part two.

"The bullet train to Kyoto in fact arrived twenty minutes early last night in just two hours ten.

Kyoto is Japan's ancient capital, with over 1,600 temples and shrines. We had the honour of being shown around the oldest, the Kiyomizu-dera shrine, by the chief monk, whose father and grandfather had been monks before him.  Following the theme of globalisation running through the trip, his son is now living in America, not following the family tradition into the cloth.  The temple has a long history, first built on the site over one thousand years ago. This respect for, and understanding of history is yet another value we share with the Japanese.

After lunch with local community and business leaders we were back on the bullet train to Tokyo, past the magnificent sight of Mount Fuji. Invited to the driver's cab during the journey, the feeling of speed was impressive. No crossings, no stop lights, and an automated braking system which told the driver when he could push to the top speed. The average delay on the journey is 18 seconds.

Finally to one of the key meetings of the trip, with Shinzo Abe, the overwhelming favourite in the LDP leadership contest, set to become Prime Minister in just over a fortnight. Abe has around 65% of the electoral college of Diet members and party activists, while the two alternatives share around 15% each. Tall and slender, he looks younger than his 51 years.

We discussed the final stages of the leadership contest, the Japanese economy, and what more we can do to strengthen British-Japanese relations. I confirmed my view that there is much that we can work with Japan on, and I urged Mr Abe to make an early visit to Britain if or when he becomes Japan's Prime Minister.

From the challenges of globalisation, coping with an ageing population, and of course climate change, what struck me throughout this visit is that we share many similar difficulties and interests. I am delighted that the Conservatives and the next generation of Japanese leaders have established a firm friendship."

George Osborne's Diary: Part 2

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne is visiting Japan and  India, and is keeping a diary for ConservativeHome.  This is his second entry (see previous).

If you think that opposition in Britain is tough, try Japan. The LDP has been in power for over fifty years, with one brief interlude in 1993. So I wasn't surprised when the opposition MPs who joined me for breakfast described themselves as 'idealists'. There hasn't been a united opposition in Japan until recently, and they are working towards the goal of a two party system.

Half an hour outside Tokyo I arrived at the test track for the "Superconducting MagLev". We first had a short technical briefing, and quizzed the engineering team about the suitability of the global ultra-fast technologies to the UK's needs, and about the energy efficiency of the system. The MagLev uses less than half of the energy per passenger kilometre than a plane, and is better still than a car. And since it uses electricity not fossil fuels, the energy itself can be from low-carbon sources. Then for the test ride. Getting on is like boarding an aircraft. It takes just ninety seconds to get up to full speed, and it's remarkably smooth - about the same as an InterCity at full speed.

Curiously it was even more impressive to watch from outside. In the damp atmosphere it created a vapour trail like an aircraft. I had to ask the inevitable question. They said it is designed to cope with snow, and that any leaves on the line will simply get blown away.

George Osborne's Diary: Part 1

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has just begun a visit to Japan and then India and he is keeping a diary for ConservativeHome.  This is his first entry.

I'd be glad if the earth moved every time I make a speech, but this time it really did. I was in the middle of giving my speech on promoting green growth in a Tokyo skyscraper when the room began to sway. The mostly Japanese audience were completely unfazed, and expected me to carry on, as if this was an everyday occurrence. It was. Apparently there are around five significant earthquakes each year in Tokyo. They explained later: the side to side ones are OK. It's when there's an up and down one that you need to dive under your desk.

Earlier in the day I had been invited to the Tokyo Stock Exchange by their Chairman, Nishimuro-san, who has been a friend since I met him in America in June, and he visited me in London in the summer. Tokyo, or course, has no stamp duty on shares. Cost have been brought down since the exchange went electronic in 1999, and the vast trading floor now contains just a dozen people using sophisticated computer equipment to spot suspicious trades.  Nishimuro-san says the programme is one of the most closely guarded secrets in Tokyo.

After a visit to the BBC Tokyo bureau to broadcast into the morning TV and radio, I met Mrs Kawaguchi, former Foreign Secretary and Foreign Policy adviser to the Prime Minister. After a fascinating discussion about the potential for Anglo-Japanese partnership in international affairs, she couldn't resist pointing out that when it comes to having a woman as Foreign Secretary, we are behind the times. She got there first almost a decade ago.

Finally on to dinner at a Chinese restaurant with senior business and political leaders. As well as discussing our efforts on climate change, I was quizzed on our approach to international terrorism and how the British people were coping with the terrorist threat. The subject of current British politics also came up. I hope I painted an unbiased portrait of our current Chancellor, whom it turned out none of them had ever met.

A packed day learning about Japan's position in the world, and how it is responding to global challenges. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, riding on the MagLev ultra-fast train at over three hundred miles per hour.