Gorbachev thought he could make it unbureaucratic and efficient. He wanted to reinvent it, so to speak. Like other Clintonians, Osborne is a social democrat, meaning he wants to achieve collectivist goals through market incentives. But there is an essential conflict between state and market. The mixed economy can never be stable.
Every intervention has some negative consequence, which creates a demand for other interventions.
That is why the mixed economy always tends toward all-out socialization. Therefore, compromising with the social democrats and their reinvented government is supping with the Devil.