5-jobs Osborne now bills YOU £188 for new business cards
Osborne picks Budget Day to sneakily reveal he’s on £650k for a one-day week!
HE’S set to earn more than £1million as he cashes in after his time as Chancellor.
But despite his lucrative new jobs, George Osborne has billed the taxpayer £188 for his new business cards and letterhead paper.
After being sacked by Theresa May, he has pocketed £786,000 making speeches to banks and is being paid £650,000 for working one day a week at American financial giant BlackRock.
In a move likely to raise eyebrows among taxpayers and his constituents, who still pay him £75,000 to be a full-time MP, Mr Osborne has charged them for the personalised stationery.
The ex-Chancellor was facing fresh questions about the new job at BlackRock last night after it emerged his team met with the firm 22 times in his last two years at the Treasury – on top of the five times Mr Osborne met the company’s executives.
He is set to earn more than £1.6million thanks to the string of lucrative jobs he has lined up since being kicked out of 11 Downing Street. The 45-yearold has picked up £786,450 from 14 speeches given mostly to banks and City institutions.
On top of the BlackRock job, he has accepted a £120,212-ayear academic role as the first ever Kissinger Fellow at the Washington DC-based McCain Institute for International Leadership. The fee includes his pay as well as travel and accommodation.
Mr Osborne is also chairman of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, a body promoting his economic policies for the north of England. It means he five jobs. But expenses released by parliamentary authorities yesterday show he made a number of claims on September 15 last year.
The first was £92.40 for new business cards, and was filed under office expenses. The second was for £96 for ‘new letterheads’. He claimed £60 for getting rid of ‘confidential waste’.
It emerged on Wednesday – the afternoon of the Budget – he was being paid £650,000 for one day a week at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.
His appointment at the firm was waved through by the Whitehall watchdog that examines jobs taken by former ministers for potential conflicts of interest, despite his and his team’s meetings with the firm when he was Chancellor. Queshas tions have been asked about why Acoba approved the role without objection as BlackRock benefited from policies introduced by Mr Osborne. The watchdog previously agreed to his ex-aide Rupert Harrison taking a job at the firm.
In his 2014 budget, Mr Osborne said workers were longer be required to use their pension pot to buy an annuity as a retirement income.
The next month BlackRock president Robert Kapito told investors up to $25billion a year of pension savings was ‘money in motion’ as a result. He added: ‘We intend to put a lot of effort into putting together more retirement products to capitalise on this market.’
The Financial Times reported this with the headline: ‘BlackRock foresees UK pensions bonanza’.
Last month Mr Osborne said: ‘I made a decision to remain in politics and public life because I wanted to go on contributing to the discussion about helping to improve our country.’ His office was unavailable for comment last night.
‘Filed under office expenses’