A first rate brain – but May told him: Learn some emotional intelligence

As ex-chancellor George Osborne quits as MP and goes from six jobs to five . . .

GEORGE Osborne yesterday bowed to pressure and announced that he would quit politics to concentrate on his role as editor of the London Evening Standard. The MP for Tatton had faced a backlash for taking on the job in the capital – which he begins next month – while representing his constituents 200 miles away in Cheshire.

He has also taken on considerable outside interests since being sacked as Chancellor by Theresa May last year.

Yesterday he ended speculation by revealing that he would not stand again for his Commons seat when Britain goes to the polls on June 8.

But he hinted at a future political comeback, saying he was only quitting ‘for now’.

Osborne’s departure brings down the final curtain on David Cameron’s privileged chumocracy – a wealthy, young group of Tory modernisers with a sense of entitlement that enabled them to ascend from virtually nowhere to the inner sanctum of British politics in a remarkably short time.

How characteristic that when he announced his decision to step down from the Commons, he arrogantly added ‘for now’. The very idea that voters might have a say in whether he becomes an MP again was clearly not something that had crossed his mind.

That said, Osborne (who changed his name from Gideon to George at the age of 14 because, as he once explained: ‘I couldn’t think of anyone who I liked or who was successful who was called Gideon’) was regarded by contemporaries as one of the most gifted political strategists of his generation.

For many years, Osborne was widely assumed to be the most likely successor to Cameron. But then both men’s careers collapsed amid the rubble of the disaster of their flawed Project Fear EU referendum campaign.

Whereas Cameron resigned as PM and then as an MP, Osborne stayed on – only to be sacked by Mrs May who told him at their last meeting that he should spend some time getting to know the Tory party. ‘Go away,’ she added, ‘ and learn some emotional intelligence.’

It was a devastating put-down by Mrs May who had been on the receiving end of many slights by Osborne who was never slow, while Chancellor, to dismiss his Home Secretary colleague as someone who was intellectually his inferior. MRS May’s withering parting shot was probably accurate, however.

For Osborne is a brilliant analyst of politics but his knowledge has been gained by having read every political biography ever written.

‘George is a political animal,’ said a man who knows him well. ‘And he’s got a first-rate brain. His problem is that he doesn’t understand ordinary people.’

For his part, at an incredibly youthful 45, Osborne still believes that one day he will realise his dream of becoming Tory leader – especially if Brexit collapses in a shambles as he is convinced it will.

But friends say he is unaware of just how damaged his chances are after the way he has amassed six jobs, earning at least £1.8million – while, until now, refusing to accept that they precluded him from serving his Cheshire constituents.

Among those jobs, as well as the editorship of the London Evening Standard, is a £650,000-a-year consultancy with investment house BlackRock.

Inevitably, he had many enemies. Labour’s Chris Mullin once said: ‘He looks permanently pink and facetious, as though life is one big public-school prank.’

Osborne began work at Tory HQ in the early 1990s and then became chief of staff to the then Tory leader William Hague before win-

ning his Tatton seat in 2001. After helping his former Bullingdon Club buddy Cameron secure the party leadership in 2005, he was rewarded with the post of shadow Chancellor. The pair went into government as part of the ToryLib Dem Coalition in 2010 – Osborne as Chancellor at the precocious age of 38.

His record at the Treasury was mixed. Some of his Budgets were a disaster. In 2012, in the socalled ‘Omnishambles Budget’, he tried controversially to impose VAT at 20 per cent on hot takeaway food, including pasties and sausage rolls – as well as on static caravans. Cue huge public outrage and a humiliating U-turn.

In another Budget, he was forced to abandon plans for £1.3billion-a-year cuts in disability benefits. And in his final one his cuts to welfare benefits were dropped after the Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith resigned in protest.

While he and Cameron (and Nick Clegg) must be given credit for stabilising the British economy after the financial crash – by slashing public spending and stimulating growth in the private sector – the fact remains that he presided over a national debt of £1.8trillion, the biggest in this country’s peacetime history.

OSBORNE’S critics say these misjudgments were made because he devoted too much time to political scheming – manoeuvring himself to be in pole position to succeed Cameron rather than immersing himself in the painstaking detail required to manage the nation’s finances.

He was also criticised for being a passionate advocate of the Cameron government policy of increasing the international aid budget every year even at a time when the money for education, health and social care was being squeezed.

But it was his pivotal role in the EU referendum which did most to damage his credibility as a Chancellor.

As the principal architect of Project Fear, he provoked fury by threatening a socalled ‘ punishment budget’ of swingeing tax rises and spending cuts if voters dared to vote to Leave.

He also shabbily leaned on senior businessmen and Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of england, to weigh in with other gloomy predictions about the effect on the UK economy. Only last week he was savaged by MPs for damaging the impartiality of the Civil Service by dragging Whitehall officials into the campaign. His new job editing the evening Standard is a powerful position that will allow him an influential platform to promote his own agenda. Although he now says he supports Brexit, he strongly believes Britain should stay in the EU’s single market.

This is a view directly opposite that of Mrs May, and Osborne will undoubtedly use the paper’s editorial columns to challenge his former colleague.

Whether as a non-journalist he will make a success of the Standard must be open to doubt. One thing is certain, however: we haven’t heard the last of George Gideon Oliver Osborne – who may learn a lot about ordinary people over the next few years.