Osborne: Bowing Out – “For Now”

“We’re all in this together.” That was George Osborne’s slogan, and until he trashed it in 2012 – by cutting taxes for the rich – he assumed the title of Britain’s next Conservative prime minister, said John Rentoul in The Independent.

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He tried, over the next few years, to win it back – in vain; now, he seems finally to have accepted that his political career is over. Announcing his departure, he said that it was only “for now”. But that sounds like “bravado, with a dash of mischief”. There is no recent precedent for a minister quitting and returning to take the top job. There has been speculation that he will use his powerful new role, as editor of the London Evening Standard, as a stepping stone to City Hall. But as a Tory, you have to be exceptionally well-loved to be elected mayor of London – and Osborne has never been that.