The trustees all voted for the ex-chancellor as their chair. It’s all about power and money
The appointment of George Osborne as chair of trustees at the British Museum is a startling jolt. The taint is so obvious, the associations so indelible: can it really have come to this? You do not have to recall the former chancellor’s austerity measures with horror to be dismayed; nor even his notorious cuts to the museum sector, pertinent as one certainly hopes they were during the selection process. Osborne was a career politician, after all. But the flagrant opportunism, the conspicuous needling, sneering and condescension made him unpopular even among members of his own party.
About the selection, questions have inevitably been raised. Where was the advertisement? Could anyone apply? Who chose him and what were his qualifications (as negligible, to critics, as for his recent role as Standard editor)? Surely he was another Tory placeman, like Jacob Rees-Mogg at the National Portrait Gallery, or Tory donor Richard Sharp as the new BBC chair?
