There was a time, not so very long ago, when young Osborne would have struggled to attract half a dozen to his birthday party, even after reassuring everyone that he would indeed pay for the dinner, digestifs and dancing. No longer. The celebration of his 40th on Monday had the great and the good queueing round the block and up the stairs at the Ritz. Little Georgie is on the crest of a wave.

Sadly for GO, it may presage a ride similar to the one Gordon Brown surfed. It takes some remembering, but in the days when people read newspapers, the Iron Chancellor was similarly feted. He was both saviour of the economy and Heathcliff lookalike. GB was number one on the Observer's "Lust List" for a "Bohemian Rhapsody"-busting 14 weeks (eventually ceding to Piers Morgan). The likes of Carmen Callil wrote "long think pieces in GQ magazine" imagining the Great Man sitting on their face. Yet within a decade he would be forlorn and forgotten.

This may be Osborne's destiny, for, like his predecessor, he is essentially friendless. Just as Brown relied on Tony to provide the charm to smooth his path, so the current Chancellor relies on Dave. Not that you would have guessed it on Monday night at White's when it was standing room only for hoi polloi and the placement at the 1st XI table read as follows: Clarkson, GO, PM, me, Dacre, G Coren, Tebbit, Pickles, C Brooks, Coulson, Agnew. A list notable for the absence of any women (and, incidentally, TV's Craig Oliver) but also the presence of Coren.

This surprised me but, says Dave, George has not only been asking Coren for help with his "jokes" but also joining him on his "celebrated lads' nights" with the Pointless host, Xander Armstrong, and the brewer Jamie Theakston. Most odd.

But not as strange as what occurred over the jelly. Until then all had been hunky-dory, the undoubted highlight being Dacre's Stig impersonation (better even than the PM's!). And then the jelly arrived and (why is it always the jelly?) everything went tits up. It all started with Clarkson using a silver spoon (provided by White's, not produced from his mouth) to catapult said jelly at a clearly out-of-his-depth Agnew. Then Brooks pulled a moony. And finally Tebbit, on being informed by Coulson that he was actually sitting opposite Giles not Alan Coren, and having enlisted the help of Pickles, effected as neat a citizen's arrest as you could wish to see on the "beleaguered journalist". Job done, you might think. Actually, pandemonium.

The Chancellor, not having such a sufficiency of friends that he can afford for one to be banged up for two years, threw a monumental hissy fit. Pickles retaliated by threatening to resign on a point of principle. Either way, we were looking at a cabinet resignation - until the news broke that Obama was arriving a night early and we all had to pull ourselves together smartish.