Champagne Osborne gets used to life in a minicab

HOW the mighty have fallen. No longer able to use the services of a chauffeur-driven ministerial car, which he has enjoyed for the past six years, George Osborne has been forced to embark on strange new experiences.

The former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was booted out of the Cabinet by Theresa May as soon as she entered 10 Downing Street, has hired an Uber minicab for the first time.

Osborne used the taxi-hailing app on his smartphone to book a car from his home in West London to take him to a party in Clapham, in the south of the capital, with a bottle of champagne tucked under each arm.

‘George said he had been told he “must try” Uber by the firm’s boss,’ his driver tells me.

‘He was very interested in the system, asking me all about how the driver ratings work.

‘He said if I’d come a little earlier, I might have met David Cameron, who’d just left [his house].’

As the son and heir of baronet Sir Peter Osborne, who co-founded the upmarket wallpaper firm Osborne & Little, George enjoyed a very privileged upbringing. So accustomed has he been to travelling first-class that he is reputed to have once said he didn’t know what it was like to turn right on boarding an aeroplane.

Osborne and Cameron are close friends of Uber’s PR boss Rachel Whetstone, wife of ‘blue sky thinker’ and former Conservative director of strategy Steve Hilton.

Uber has proved hugely popular since it was introduced in London in 2012. Yesterday, it announced it was adding advanced booking of up to a month in the capital — previously, customers could only book a car for immediate travel.

But its rise has angered traditional black cab and minicab drivers.

Whetstone’s influence was cited as a reason Cameron’s government refused to curb the rise of private hire vehicles in London, despite vociferous complaints from black cab drivers.

Despite striking a rapport with his driver, Osborne was unable to convince him of the supposed merits of the European Union, which the ex-Chancellor unsuccessfully campaigned for in the referendum.

‘He even asked me how I voted on Brexit,’ reveals the driver. He had to inform Osborne that he was one of the millions who voted Leave.