Logo
facts about george osborne.html

68 Facts About George Osborne

facts about george osborne.html1.

George Gideon Oliver Osborne was born on 23 May 1971 and is a British retired politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the Cameron government.

2.

George Osborne went on to be a special adviser to Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Douglas Hogg and work for John Major at 10 Downing Street, including on Major's unsuccessful 1997 general election campaign.

3.

George Osborne was elected as MP for Tatton in 2001, becoming the youngest Conservative member of the House of Commons.

4.

George Osborne was appointed Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury by Conservative leader Michael Howard in 2004.

5.

In 2012, George Osborne significantly reduced taxes for the top rate of earners.

6.

George Osborne was widely viewed as a potential successor to David Cameron as Leader of the Conservative Party; one Conservative MP, Nadhim Zahawi, suggested that the closeness of his relationship with Cameron meant that the two effectively shared power during the duration of the Cameron governments.

7.

George Osborne served on the backbenches for a year before leaving public office at the 2017 general election.

8.

George Osborne was editor of the Evening Standard from 2017 to 2020.

9.

George Osborne has been chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership since 2016 and of the British Museum since 2021.

10.

George Osborne was born in Paddington, London, as Gideon Oliver George Osborne.

11.

George Osborne's mother is Felicity Alexandra Loxton-Peacock, the daughter of Hungarian-born Jewish artist Clarisse Loxton-Peacock.

12.

George Osborne decided when he was 13 to be known by the additional first name of 'George'.

13.

Life was easier as a George Osborne; it was a straightforward name.

14.

George Osborne was educated at private schools: Norland Place School, Colet Court and St Paul's School.

15.

George Osborne attended Davidson College in North Carolina for a semester, as a Dean Rusk Scholar.

16.

In 1993, George Osborne intended to pursue a career in journalism.

17.

George Osborne was shortlisted for, but failed to gain a place on, The Times trainee scheme; he applied to The Economist, where he was interviewed and rejected by Gideon Rachman.

18.

One of his Oxford friends, journalist George Bridges, alerted Osborne some time later to a research vacancy at Conservative Central Office.

19.

George Osborne joined the Conservative Research Department in 1994, and became head of its Political Section.

20.

George Osborne worked on Prime Minister John Major's campaign team in 1997, in the run-up to the Tories' heavy election defeat that year.

21.

George Osborne helped to prepare Hague for the weekly session of Prime Minister's Questions, often playing the role of Prime Minister Tony Blair.

22.

George Osborne was elected as the Member of Parliament for Tatton, Cheshire, at the June 2001 election.

23.

George Osborne succeeded Independent MP Martin Bell, who had defeated the controversial former Conservative minister Neil Hamilton in 1997 but had kept his promise not to stand there at the following election.

24.

George Osborne won with a majority of 8,611 over the Labour candidate, becoming the youngest Conservative MP in the House of Commons.

25.

George Osborne was appointed in September 2004 by then Conservative leader Michael Howard to the Shadow Cabinet, as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

26.

George Osborne's promotion prompted speculation he would run for the leadership of the Conservative Party when Howard stepped down, but he ruled himself out within a week.

27.

George Osborne served as campaign manager for David Cameron's leadership campaign, and kept the Shadow Chancellor's post when Cameron became leader later that year.

28.

George Osborne stayed in my shadow cabinet not because he is a friend, not because we are godfathers to each other's children but because he is the right person to do the job.

29.

George Osborne set up a "Tax Reform Commission" in October 2005 to investigate ideas for how to create a "flatter, simpler" tax system.

30.

George Osborne was rebuked in October 2006 by Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons, when he attacked the Chancellor at Oral Questions by citing a comment attributed to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton, describing the Chancellor as likely to make an "effing awful" Prime Minister.

31.

That month, George Osborne faced criticism from some quarters for appearing to suggest that Brown was "faintly autistic".

32.

In September 2007, ahead of the publication of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, George Osborne pledged that the Conservative Party would match Labour's public spending plans for the next three years.

33.

George Osborne denied claims he had attempted to solicit a donation from Deripaska and said that he had "made a mistake" by meeting with him.

34.

On 14 November 2008, in an intervention described by the BBC's Nick Robinson as "pretty extraordinary", George Osborne publicly warned that the more the government borrows, the less attractive sterling becomes to hold.

35.

In 2009 and 2012 George Osborne was criticised for his expense claims, in particular for the claims for mortgage interest payments on his Cheshire properties.

36.

The report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards found that although George Osborne had breached the rules, the offence was "unintended and relatively minor".

37.

George Osborne said he had received "flawed" advice and not benefited personally.

38.

George Osborne was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer on 11 May 2010, and was sworn in as a Privy Counsellor two days later.

39.

The study claimed George Osborne could have "maintained historic rates of growth in public spending and still have reduced Britain's government debt burden by 2019".

40.

George Osborne is hawkish on foreign policy with links to Washington neo-conservatives and ideologically committed to cutting the state.

41.

George Osborne has stated that the British economy must diversify away from London following the 2008 banking crisis, most notably in the form of the Northern Powerhouse policy proposals which aim to improve transport links and boost science and technology investment in the cities of the North in order to increase economic output.

42.

At the time of the 2016 referendum George Osborne was prominently in favour of the UK remaining in the EU.

43.

Whilst David Cameron was prime minister, George Osborne was widely viewed as a potential future leader of the Conservatives were Cameron to stand down and trigger a leadership contest, despite being seen as a relatively unpopular figure with the general public.

44.

George Osborne worked hard on rebuilding his image after the much-criticised 2012 budget.

45.

George Osborne denied rumours that he had referred to his colleague Iain Duncan Smith as "not clever enough", which were published in Matthew d'Ancona's book In It Together.

46.

On 28 June 2016, George Osborne ruled out standing as a candidate in that year's party leadership election, stating he was "not the person to provide the unity" his party needed.

47.

George Osborne was sacked by Theresa May on 13 July 2016, following her appointment as Prime Minister.

48.

George Osborne returned to the backbenches and Philip Hammond replaced him as Chancellor.

49.

Unlike Cameron, George Osborne intended to remain an MP and stand for Parliament again in 2020, although proposed boundary changes could have led to the abolition of his Tatton constituency.

50.

George Osborne's lucrative speaking engagements for a range of financial institutions since his dismissal as Chancellor helped make him the highest earning MP in 2016.

51.

In 2017, George Osborne became the first Kissinger Fellow at the McCain Institute for International Leadership.

52.

George Osborne announced he would be standing down as MP for Tatton in April 2017, a day after the 2017 general election was declared.

53.

George Osborne did not rule out returning to the Commons at some point.

54.

George Osborne was accused of breaking the post-ministerial employment rules of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments by accepting the editorship without the committee's approval.

55.

George Osborne specialised in research on international politics and the global economy.

56.

George Osborne continued to advise the asset manager BlackRock and began advising his brother's firm 9Yards Capital.

57.

George Osborne joined 9Yards, a growth stage venture capital firm focused on financial technology and IT logistics investments, in 2018 as a partner and chairman.

58.

George Osborne was succeeded as editor by the former deputy editor of British Vogue and sister-in-law of David Cameron, Emily Sheffield, on 1 July 2020.

59.

In 2018 George Osborne was discussed as a potential candidate for Mayor of London in the election scheduled to be held in 2020.

60.

George Osborne said that as well as considering a bid, he would not rule out a return to Parliament.

61.

In July 2019, the Financial Times reported that George Osborne was seeking backing to replace Christine Lagarde as managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

62.

George Osborne needed to be nominated by directors on the IMF's executive board, who were elected by member countries, to enter the contest.

63.

On 6 September 2019, George Osborne abandoned his IMF leadership attempt, and sources later confirmed that the chief executive of the World Bank, Kristalina Georgieva, had been put forward as the European Union's nominee.

64.

George Osborne left his roles at the Evening Standard and BlackRock in March 2021, and in April became an investment banker at Robey Warshaw.

65.

George Osborne joined the museum's board of trustees on 1 September 2021 and formally became chairman on 4 October.

66.

George Osborne was portrayed by Sebastian Armesto in the 2015 Channel 4 television film Coalition.

67.

George Osborne is heir apparent to his family's Irish baronetcy, of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon in County Waterford.

68.

George Osborne married Frances Howell, author and elder daughter of Lord Howell of Guildford, a Conservative politician, on 4 April 1998.