Stand down now, George!
Calls for Osborne to quit as an MP following his shock appointment as newspaper editor
‘An insult to the electors’
GEORGE Osborne was under intense pressure to resign as an MP last night after accepting a sixth job – as editor of the London Evening Standard.
The former Chancellor’s appointment stunned Fleet Street and Westminster, and senior colleagues privately urged him to go, saying his position was untenable.
But Mr Osborne, 45, refused to quit as MP for Tatton in Cheshire, drawing accusations of bringing the Commons ‘into disrepute’.
No 10 had no warning of the appointment and advisers reacted with fury amid fears that he will use the post to ‘take revenge’ on Theresa May for sacking him after she became Prime Minister. Insiders said the job would give him free rein to campaign against Brexit and undermine Mrs May.
A senior Tory close to No 10 said: ‘You have to question why he’s taken this job while remaining as an MP. The answer is quite clear – he still hasn’t given up the possibility of being Prime Minister. It is an outrage.’
It emerged yesterday that the former Chancellor is set to be rebuked by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments – which vets jobs taken by ex-ministers – after failing to wait for its approval. Labour MP Clive Lewis said he would lodge a complaint with the committee, as Mr Osborne ‘has shown total contempt for the rules’.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described the move as ‘an insult to the electors he is supposed to serve’ and called for him to resign.
And one Tory minister said: ‘He cannot be the editor of a newspaper and stay on in Parliament. I doubt there is a single MP in any party who thinks it is acceptable. It’s power-crazed.’
Former Cabinet colleague Iain Duncan Smith said he would be ‘hoplessly conflicted’ in his new role and added: ‘I find it astonishing that someone as senior as this, with no journalistic background can end up being editor of a newspaper.’
But Mr Osborne – already on course to make more than £1.5million a year from four other extra-parliamentary jobs – insisted there was no reason he could not continue as MP for Tatton, almost 200 miles from the capital.
In a statement, he said: ‘I was elected by my constituents in Tatton to serve them and I intend to fulfil that promise. This paper is edited primarily in the morning – Parliament votes in the afternoon.’
Evgeny Lebedev, the Standard’s owner, described his new appointee as ‘London through and through’.
Mr Osborne, who has never been a full-time journalist, will work four days a week at the paper. Former Evening Standard editor Sarah Sands has previously suggested the role is hugely demanding. In an article in Harper’s Bazaar magazine, she said she was at her desk by 6.30am each day and did not leave until 11 hours later.
In addition to his editorship, Mr Osborne is also contracted to work one day a week at the American financial giant Blackrock, for which he is paid £650,000 a year.
Since his sacking last summer, he has also pocketed £786,450 from 14 speeches, given mostly to banks and other City institutions. And he has accepted a £120,200-a-year academic position as the first Kissinger Fellow at the US-based McCain Institute for International leadership.
Parliamentary sources said there is no mechanism to force him to give up his £74,000-a-year job as an MP.
Mr Osborne’s refusal to quit prompted an avalanche of criticism from anti-sleaze campaigners.
Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life, said: ‘It is incredible he thinks he can do all these jobs and serve his constituents properly. He should resign. It brings the House of Commons into disrepute.’
The appointment provoked scorn on social media, with former Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeting: ‘Breaking: I will shortly be announced as editor of Heat magazine…’