Six-job Osborne is not the hero Westminster needs

The news that George Osborne is to edit the London Evening Standard lit up the screen of my phone for a solid five minutes on Friday. “This must be a joke,” declared the nation, and with good reason. How on earth can someone with no journalistic experience take the top job at a national paper? How can an MP be an impartial editor?

How can one man have so many jobs? How are George Osborne’s eyes so beady?

Four equally important questions which need answering.

The man himself attempted to do so in parliament on Monday night, with limited success.

He opened with a joke about the timing of the debate being unfortunate as it was too late to make the Standard’s deadline. Haha.

Then he did something unbelievable, I watched in shock as the former chancellor made what at first glance seemed to be a decent point, that having an editor in parliament may be good for the place.

He said the house would be enhanced by people of different backgrounds and he is right, politicians in general would benefit from a little more real world experience.

I’d certainly prefer Jacob Rees-Mogg if he’d spent some time on a building site.

But six-job Osborne is not the hero Westminster needs or the one it deserves.

He gets paid £13,000 a day as a consultant, has made £786,450 by giving 14 speeches since leaving Downing Street and will now take the helm at the Standard, all while representing 65,000 people in Tatton.

Politics does need more diversity but the only way George’s latest venture will enhance the commons is if it’s in need of more greedy men.

I think it’s got more than it’s fair share of them.