Has there been a more annoying major British politician in the last two decades than George Osborne? Anyone more undeserving of high position?
Some will press the claims of his pal, David Cameron. He admittedly has a strong case. But following the Tories’ wipeout in July, Dave is no longer Foreign Secretary, and for the time being at least has withdrawn from public life.
Not so George. He reigns as chairman of the British Museum. What he has done to merit that exalted role isn’t clear, though I suppose he may have been thought a safe pair of hands.
But then it’s not entirely obvious what qualified him to be Chancellor of the Exchequer between 2010 and 2016, or subsequently the editor of a major newspaper when he had far less journalistic experience than a junior reporter on the Brighton Argus.
At the British Museum he has championed one cause for at least three years – the return, or at any rate the loan, of the Elgin Marbles to Greece. The previous government was rightly sceptical about this project. Having disposed of the Chagos Islands, Sir Keir Starmer is reportedly happy for the Marbles to be dispatched to Athens.
There are arguments in favour of doing this but the ones against are stronger. The Marbles have been well looked after in London for over 200 years. Had Lord Elgin not bought them from the Ottomans, who then ruled what has become modern Greece, they might well not have survived.
Moreover, London is an international city in a way that Athens is not. The Marbles are likely to be seen by many more people where they are than they would be in the Greek capital.
A loan might seem a sensible compromise but the fact is that the Greek government doesn’t recognise British ownership. If the Marbles were installed in a new museum in Athens, they might never be returned.
Stephen Glover ponders whether there has been a more annoying major British politician in the last two decades than George Osborne. He admits his pal, David Cameron, might win some votes
And what about all the other foreign objects in the British Museum? Must they also be sent back to where they came from, along with all the great French, Italian or Spanish paintings in the National Gallery?
Never mind. Supercilious George has decided on behalf of the nation – though I’m not aware the nation put him in his present post – that the Marbles belong at least partly in Greece.
If he gets his way, he’ll be celebrated in some circles. Appreciative hands will pat his shoulder when he next attends the World Economic Forum in Davos, where they really should erect a plaque to honour his numerous past appearances. Glasses will be raised to him at meetings of the secretive Bilderberg Group.
In Notting Hill restaurants, enlightened people will look fondly at him as, groomed and sleek, he walks in. All right, he was responsible for austerity. Granted, he’s nominally a Tory. But George has done the right thing by the Greeks!
Can no one stop him? Can one smug, entitled man with an eye on posterity be allowed to deprive the British Museum of the Elgin Marbles, after which other treasures will have to be given back?
Let us be fair. George Osborne is persuasive, reasonably clever and charming. Rich, too, having just trousered an estimated £10million for a year’s work at the Mayfair investment bank Robey Warshaw.
The ascent of Osborne in our national life has been amazing to behold. There was a time, not long ago in our history, when men (it was usually men) spent decades trying to climb the ladder towards the great offices of state, learning about statecraft.
For George, as for many modern politicians, it has been different. Politics was an hors d’oeuvre. Shadow Chancellor at 33, his political career was over at the age of 45 when the incoming PM, Theresa May, sacked him as Chancellor, advising him to learn about his party and suggesting he leave No 11 Downing Street by the back door.
As chairman of the British Museum, Mr Osborne has championed one cause for at least three years – the return, or loan, of the Elgin Marbles to Greece
George had never had a proper job before being appointed Shadow Chancellor. Having failed to be employed by The Times and the Economist, he worked in the Conservative Research Department and became a special adviser.
Once in the shadow cabinet, he sometimes sounded vaguely Thatcherite, and notoriously proposed higher thresholds for inheritance tax. These he didn’t deliver, ostensibly because the Lib Dems, who were the Tories’ coalition partners, wouldn’t let him.
As a cautious and unimaginative Chancellor, he clung to austerity longer than was either desirable or necessary, preposterously claiming that ‘we’re all in this together’. Though interest rates were almost zero, he declined to borrow for major capital projects that might have kick-started the economy. Growth remained sluggish.
He supported his mate Cameron in various bad causes: escalating the war in Afghanistan, destabilising Libya, proposing to bomb Syria (the Commons voted against), and cosying up to the Chinese.
When the EU Referendum came along in June 2016, George spearheaded Project Fear, predicting instant recession, soaring unemployment and higher taxes in the event of a vote to leave. None of these things came to pass.
After Mrs May dismissed him, in what was surely the most inspired decision of her benighted premiership, George did not, to his credit, sulk for long. His friend, the Russian-born newspaper proprietor Evgeny Lebedev, made him editor of the London Evening Standard.
George Osborne was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016. Growth remained sluggish during his tenure, Stephen Glover notes
Read More
STEPHEN GLOVER: Why is this Government so breathtakingly bad? Because Starmer is miscast as PM
However, George couldn’t forgive Mrs May. According to a magazine profile, he told colleagues he wouldn’t rest until she was ‘chopped up in bags in my freezer’. Fortunately for all concerned, this never happened.
The Evening Standard’s losses were spiralling, and in July 2020 Osborne nimbly jumped ship, passing the editorial chair to David Cameron’s sister-in-law. (Best keep these things in the family.) He soon settled into that amazingly lucrative berth at Robey Warshaw, where he was paid those millions.
I’ll leave it to fair-minded readers to decide whether he would have hit the jackpot in this way if he hadn’t been a former Chancellor of the Exchequer with a bulging contacts book, who was a familiar face in many finance ministries.
My own belief is that George Osborne would never have got such a job if he hadn’t been Chancellor and Cameron’s right-hand man. Politics enriched him. There are many others like him in modern Britain.
He and his new wife have bought a £10million house in Notting Hill to add to a handsome mansion in Somerset. Life has been good to George.
It’s an old story, as well as being one about modern politics. By one of those apparent coincidences that argues in favour of a deity with a sense of humour, there is a character called George Osborne in William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. He is rich, snobbish and self-important.
Are we really going to allow our own George Osborne to spirit off the Elgin Marbles to Greece? It shouldn’t be up to him and Sir Keir Starmer and unknown bureaucrats, who do as they are told.
When I look at George – spoilt, cosseted, and presumptuous – I’m afraid to say that I understand what motivates angry Leftists such as Jeremy Corbyn, and I almost feel like taking to the streets.