Osborne accused of breaching rules with Evening Standard job

The Cabinet Office faces calls to investigate George Osborne’s decision to take a job as editor of the Evening Standard without the approval of the watchdog on former ministerial appointments.
Andrew Gwynne, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, said he wanted to raise concerns about about a potential breach of the ministerial code, as the advisory committee on business appointments had not yet given its judgment on the new role.
Osborne is facing calls to resign as a Conservative MP following the shock announcement that he would combine his roles in parliament with the editorship, an advisory job at BlackRock investment firm earning £650,000 a year, lucrative speaking engagements and chairmanship of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.
It also emerged yesterday that Osborne only decided to apply to be editor of the Evening Standard after friends contacted him to ask for advice on whether they ought to apply for the role.
Rohan Silva, a former Downing Street adviser who worked closely with Osborne in government, told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 that he had called to congratulate his former boss and asked him why he had applied for the job.
“He said that a bunch of people had been calling him up asking him for advice on whether they should vie for the editorship job, and after a few of these calls he sort of thought to himself: hang on, this is something I really want to do,” Silva said.
Silva said Osborne’s “world view” matched that of both the Standard and Londoners more broadly, making him a good fit for the job
“He thinks that global trade is broadly a good thing, rather than a bad thing; he thinks that high-skilled immigration is a good thing; he thinks Britain should be an open, liberal society,” Silva added.
But John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, criticised Osborne’s job as an example of the “rotten system” as he spoke at a Labour economic conference in Newcastle yesterday.
“The former chancellor is heading off to edit a London newspaper,” he said.
“At the same time, he’s going to be advising the world’s biggest asset manager. Working four days a month for £650,000 a year. All whilst still being paid for his job as an MP. How can he properly represent his constituents in Cheshire when he’s editing a newspaper for London?”
In his letter to the Cabinet Office, Gwynne asked John Manzoni, the head of the civil service, and Sue Gray, head of ethics at the Cabinet Office, to investigate whether Osborne followed the proper process after leaving office eight months ago, when he was sacked by Theresa May as chancellor.
Osborne was warned by the advisory committee on business appointments that “advice should be sought on all appointments, paid or unpaid, before they are taken up or announced” and that the “the committee is unable to offer retrospective advice on appointments that have already been announced”.
“Today many were again concerned to find that Mr Osborne had repeated this procedure, announcing his new role at the London Evening Standard prior to consulting the advisory committee on business appointments,” Gwynne wrote.
“The rules on business appointments are established to counter suspicion that the decisions and statements of a serving minister might be influenced by the hope or expectation of future employment with a particular firm or organisation; and that an employer could make improper use of official information to which a former minister has had access to.
“Disregarding these rules deeply undermines public trust in the democratic processes and does a disservice to those members that ensure they follow the rules laid out on these matters.”
Speaking in his role as a north-west MP, Gwynne said: “The lack of respect he’s shown to his role as member of parliament is a disgrace and it looks like his plans for a ‘northern powerhouse’ will be joining all the other broken Tory manifesto promises.
“With this new four-day post at the London Evening Standard and his one-day a week post at BlackRock — I have no idea how he is able to claim to spend any time representing the north-west, a region that myself and many of my Labour colleagues fight for every day.”
Conservatives have also questioned whether Osborne could represent his constituents effectively while editing a daily paper on top of a string of lucrative jobs.
Others accused him of seeking to undermine Theresa May.
One party source said MPs would be contacting their whips to express dismay.
The chief whip, Gavin Williamson, is likely to face pressure tomorrow to make an example of Osborne.
Ryan Shorthouse, the director of Bright Blue, a Tory thinktank, said he expected Osborne to shortly stand down as an MP.
“A free press, which holds power to account, is a fundamental part of a liberal democracy,” he said.
“A sitting MP, especially of the governing party, cannot also be an editor of an influential and national newspaper. It is a significant conflict of interest and unethical. The (former) chancellor has spoken eloquently about the importance and goodness of liberal democracies. So, if he is to be editor of the London Evening Standard, he must — and I suspect will — resign as an MP.”
Newspaper editorials yesterday reacted to Osborne’s surprise appointed with words of caution for the former chancellor.
The Times, which is a sometime employer of Osborne’s former cabinet colleague, Michael Gove, said he should “be aware...of the potential for conflicts of interest”.
It said that while he edits the Standard in the morning Osborne will have to “think like a ruthless scrutineer, seeking the story those in government most want to hide”, and by afternoon “be the prime minister’s supplicant, falling into line with her whips”.
Gove himself wished Osborne well in his new role, saying he welcomed “high-quality recruits to the world of journalism”, while avoiding the question of whether he had been in line for the Standard job himself.
“The thing is, I’m a columnist rather than an editor,” he said at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai.
“So I know that the right thing to do with editors is always to say, ‘yes, sir’ and the columnists should concentrate on their own particular role.”
The Daily Telegraph, which pays the Tory Brexit campaign poster boy Boris Johnson to fill column inches, said Osborne, whose Tatton seat faces the axe at the next general election, may have been “thinking of his own future first”.
It suggested the remain MP was joining the growing “liberal elite” outside parliament, and that he could use the new role to try to establish a “coherent force” outside the Commons to hold the prime minister to account.
However, it noted: “The irony of this appointment is that it will confirm the suspicion that militant remain today is a cosy, elitist project dominated by the capital.
“Rejection of the establishment is why some people voted Brexit. A remain crusade run by the establishment is unlikely to win them back.”
The Guardian’s leader welcomed Osborne to the trade as “Britain’s most celebrated trainee journalist”, noting that it was the first time a former chancellor had edited a daily paper, even though journalists have become chancellors before. Yet it warned “editing is hard, full-time work” and said “something will have to give” in his portfolio — although “it should not be the journalism”.