By George, another mega job!
After Chancellor, editor and £650k for one-day-a-week fund role, Osborne heads British Museum
GEORGE osborne is taking on yet another job – the chairmanship of the British Museum.
The former Chancellor already is devoting his talents to several other high-profile posts – and has been through a string of others since quitting public office in 2017.
He stepped down as the editor of London’s evening Standard newspaper in March and previously earned £650,000-ayear working one day a week at investment firm Blackrock.
The former Conservative MP for Tatton will start his latest role, which is unpaid, in october after the museum’s board unanimously elected him to replace Sir richard Lambert. As chancellor from 2010 to 2016 he presided over deep cuts to support for museums.
His appointment comes as the British Museum faces growing calls to return relics, such as Greece’s elgin Marbles which were removed from the Parthenon in Athens in the early 1800s.
Mr osborne, 50, who has a degree in Modern History from oxford University, joked in 2016 that former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis had ‘lost his marbles’ in a reference to the artefacts.
Yesterday he said: ‘All my life I have loved the British Museum. It’s a place that brings cultures together and tells the story of our common humanity.’
The process to recruit a new chairman was led by the British Museum’s deputy chairman, Baroness Minouche Shafik, who was deputy governor of the Bank of england when Mr osborne was chancellor. She said Mr osborne would be working with the board to expand the institution’s audience as it embarked on a ‘major programme of renewal’.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela rayner said his record on cuts to museum budgets meant Mr osborne was ‘in no way an appropriate choice… and the man has more than enough jobs already’. But Baroness Shafik said: ‘ George osborne has a long-standing commitment to culture, both personally and in his various public roles.’