text: Watching George Osborne enjoy scampi and chips with a glass of cider and a chat with the locals in a Somerset pub garden, it is hard to believe that only three years ago he was virtually scared to leave the safety of his Treasury office. He felt besieged and intimidated. There was little evidence his hardline ‘austerity Britain’ policies were working. His nervy demeanour and pallid complexion reflected the sickly economy. In the eyes of critics he was a hate figure – and it was getting to him. ‘It’s fair to say that by 2012 it was tough economically, and I got myself into a position where I was hunkered down in the Treasury,’ George Osborne drinks a pint of Somerset cider as he is interviewed by Political Editor Simon Walters at The Cotley Inn, near Chard, Somerset . Osborne reflects as we chat at the Cotley Inn in Chard during a break in an Election campaign tour of the South West. ‘I was saying, look, if people don’t like the plan or whatever, well, you know… so be it.’ The nadir came when the Chancellor was booed at the Paralympic Games. Worse, it happened in front of his children, Luke and Liberty, now aged 13 and 11. Did he feel he couldn’t take any more? ‘I never personally felt, erm, low,’ he says slowly, giving a rare glimpse of his emotions. ‘But I’m not going to pretend it was easy. ‘The most difficult thing was explaining it to my children – it’s not an easy conversation to have.’ Osborne has gone from being booed in front of his two children at the Paralympics to being credited with helping to turn Britain's economy around . Osborne did not consider throwing in the towel, but he knew that he had to break out of his Treasury bunker. ‘I thought, hold on, you cannot do this in this job – you have to go out and explain yourself, meet people, expose yourself to fresh ideas.’ He gestures with outstretched arms, hands clenched, recalling the moment he got a grip. Since then, confidence in the economy has risen on the same slow but steady path as that of the Chancellor himself. And he did more than look at himself in the mirror politically. He went on the 5:2 diet and lost 2st. On the day of our interview, a national newspaper compared the new-look Osborne to dashing Latin heart-throb actor Antonio Banderas – quite a change from the days when he was derided as a Regency fop. ‘It’s definitely moving in the right direction!’ he laughs. More waspish and engaging than David Cameron in private, Osborne has always looked more awkward and unsympathetic in public. It is one of the reasons he stood aside when Cameron ran for the Tory Party leadership. He is not the type to emote in public at the drop of a hat – a basic skill required by modern leaders. His sense of isolation in his early days as Chancellor was compounded by being separated from his family as a result of his and wife Frances’s decision in 2010 to carry on living in their family home in London instead of moving to Downing Street. They thought it would make it easier to preserve a ‘normal’ family life. It did the opposite. ‘I never saw the kids or Frances, because I was up so early and back late,’ Osborne says. His morale improved dramatically when the family did move into Downing Street, one of the few U-turns Osborne has made. ‘I see the children all the time now, in the morning, and I can pop up in the early afternoon if I’m going out in the evening,’ he says cheerily. ‘I feel very lucky.’ Osborne also had some stark warnings for the voting public - saying Britain under Labour will mimic France's course since it voted in socialist Francois Hollande as president . Osborne’s tour of the West Country has been designed to target seats where the Tories are fighting the Lib Dems. At Hawkins Garage in St Austell, Cornwall, to promote the Government’s apprenticeship scheme, the Chancellor was shown by 17-year-old trainee mechanic Dale Wilkes how to drain a car sump. Osborne’s hand ended up drenched in oil. If he had been asked to do it in his ‘hunkered down’ phase he would have found it torture. Here, with his skinny frame in blue garage overalls, it wasn’t easy to tell him apart from the apprentices in the gloom beneath the car ramp as Dale passed him a spanner. From St Austell it was back to Somerset and Yeovil, where Osborne hopes the Tory candidate will unseat Lib Dem David Laws who was, until two weeks ago, a Coalition colleague. Osborne was such a fan of Laws that when the Coalition was formed in 2010, he made Laws his deputy, stating that he was ‘put on earth to be Treasury Chief Secretary’. ‘Well, he didn’t last long in that position!’ hoots Osborne with a fiendish grin. Laws was forced to resign after he was caught up in an MPs’ expenses scandal which led to him being painfully ‘outed’ as gay. Osborne’s ruthless political approach allows no room for sentiment. Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem who succeeded Laws as Osborne’s Treasury deputy, claimed that an unnamed ‘very senior Tory’ told him: ‘You take care of the workers, we’ll take care of the bosses.’ Was it Osborne who said it, as many suspected? ‘No,’ the Chancellor snaps. But if he has rescued the economy and Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are so useless, as he always claims, why aren’t the Conservatives ahead in the polls? Is it time to press the panic button? ‘The campaign is going as we wanted it to,’ he insists. Really? ‘Yes. We always thought it would be close.’ Mr Osborne said he never 'personally felt low' about being booed at the Paralympics in 2012, but had to explain it to his children . But Miliband is proving more resilient than the Tories expected. ‘Only because he’s standing behind podiums in front of Labour supporters,’ he mocks. Tory MPs claim that their party’s campaign lacks passion and that Cameron’s Australian election guru, Lynton Crosby, is too aggressive and too powerful. Osborne stands foursquare behind them: ‘David Cameron leads this Election campaign from the front.’ It provokes him into showing some passion of his own. ‘I’m not about to hand over the keys to No 11 to Ed Balls, saying, “Go and wreck all the good work we’ve done and ruin the lives of the people of this country.” Absolutely not!’ The one U-turn Osborne has made during the last five years is moving his wife Frances (pictured) and their children to No 11 Downing Street, so he can be closer to them . He says that if Labour wins, Britain will become an economic basket case like France did after socialist Francois Hollande won power. ‘France is an example of how quickly the mood can turn sour, jobs go, debts pile up. People will say, “My God, Britain is going backward instead of forward.” Osborne is in his stride now, spitting venom. ‘All this sanctimonious rubbish you hear from Labour about standing up for the many not the few… the people who suffer most when Labour governments screw up the economy are the poorest.’ A measure of the transformation in his standing was indicated when last month Cameron named Osborne as one of three potential successors – and no one laughed. So would he like to become PM? ‘I’m not a politician who spends my life thinking, “What if…?” and “What when…?” ’ Rot, he can be every bit as calculating as Labour’s Machiavellian Peter Mandelson, we tease him. ‘I’m not rising to that!’ he laughs. Osborne was back on the campaign trail yesterday in his Tatton constituency, combining politics with a family day out. He was accompanied by Frances, a successful author and daughter of former Tory Minister Lord David Howell, and Luke and Liberty. ‘We’re all really looking forward to the Election. The children are interested in it. My son went through the newspaper the other day and marked up what he thought were good stories for me and bad ones,’ he chuckles. ‘Then The Voice came on TV and we switched over to that.’ With that, Osborne takes another sip of his Somerset cider, aptly called Thatchers Gold. It slakes Osborne’s thirst for now. But he will be left with a permanent bitter taste if the Tories don’t win Election gold on May 7.
target: Osborne sits down with the Mail on Sunday while on the campaign trail .
  Reveals how much has changed since he was booed at 2012 Paralympics .
  Warns Britain will become an economic basket case under Labour .
  Hits out at rival's 'sanctimonious rubbish' about standing up for the many .