George Osborne

PS. Ed Miliband has a sense of humour. He's just tweeted "Breaking: I will shortly be announced as editor of Heat magazine...."

I think it could be fake news

Crossed threads Daphne - I'll ask GN to delete mine.

Yours was first. I'll ask them to delete mine.

Oh! Yours has already gone- that was quick. Hope they don't delete both.

No don't! I've already asked

After you....no, after you! What a polite lot!!

So, is it a myth that M.P.s work really really hard at their job as an M.P. if they have time to have another two jobs on top.

Well back to Osborne!

As I said in my original post - is it April 1st? The Evening Standard is owned by a Russian oligarch who is a former KGB operative. I seem to have forgotten about Osborne's previous journalistic experience, silly me, now he's an editor.

What's going on?

An MP should not edit a newspaper , I agree with John Mann Osbourne should stand down

To be honest, I'm not greatly concerned about how many jobs GO has or even how much he earns - many MPs have their snouts in the trough.

I'm just rather confused, on a number of fronts.

One, after the Referendum result I had a begrudging respect for GO for not resigning his seat, a la Cameron, and thought it meant that he saw a future in politics and didn't just run away.

Two, how can he edit the ES, which has very influential Financial pages and be a consultant to Black Rock?

I don't know why I have a problem with this but I do.

I don't usually have a problem with MP's having a 2nd income / job such as a Doctor / Lawyer carrying on with their profession or being paid for media articles / appearances.

I simply do not comprehend how George Osborne can look anybody in the eye and say he can perform his duty as an MP whether that be at Westminster or his constituency.

He should resign.

He only has to do four days a month for his £650K job with Black Rock so plenty of time for several other jobs no doubt his friends with the same school tie will find him some directorships and the odd oversees lecture tour to top up his income. The of course there is always the dividends from the family firm.

I would have thought that being an editor of a newspaper would be a full-time job in itself - maybe it's going to be like the Today Programme on Radio 4 with its occasional guest-editors?

Reminds me of a couple of years' ago when Malcolm Rifkind & Jack Straw were secretly filmed touting for business with a supposed Chinese firm - Rifkind said “You’d be surprised how much free time I have. I spend a lot of time reading, I spend a lot of time walking."

I agree with POGS . He should resign.

Good MPS work 24/7 looking after their constituents and fulfilling their parliamentary duties.

Osborne is displaying breathtaking arrogance and contempt for his constituents. I don't particularly object to his consultancy* or his editors job but to do them while he is taking taxpayers' money for what should be a full time job is despicable.

*(though why any company should in any way value the services of an ex-chancellor who left the country even deeper in debt than when he took office and who failed to achieve his unrealistic targets is completely beyond my comprehension. )

I think all MPs should work full time serving their constituents.

Ideally they should have some experience of another job before they get elected so they know a bit about life for the rest of us.

Perhaps we should raise the qualifying age to 25 so we don't have students like Mhairi Black elected only to find it "boring"

A commentator suggested that Osborne has set himself up to be in opposition to May, particularly over Brexit, and thinks Osborne will use the Standard to do just that.

Bit late now...

Want a bet. He will make life as difficult as possible for May. I bet the Brexiters are spitting.

Osborne is clearly very ambitious

He has had no editorial experience- is it who you know in this instance?

I agree, he is letting down his constituents big time having all of these jobs. How much money does he need?

Other MPs do have extra jobs but I don't think it's appropriate to have two other jobs - one day a week and four days a week - which equate to a full-time post. If others are doing this, I think that is wrong as well. £75,000 per year deserves at least some commitment to the job.

He said that under his editorship the newspaper's principal objective is to represent London's interests. There is, I think understandably, a good deal of resentment about the constant focus on London, and this news will do nothing to dispel that. There is also, as has been mentioned, the conflict of interest regarding his job in the financial sector.

I think it's just greedy and unprincipled.

He isn't in it for the money, he has his eyes on the big prize. God help us!

Who will rid us if these troublesome Tories?

I agree whitewave that this is a political move on his part, particularly as his constituency is due to disappear under forthcoming boundary changes.

What happened to the Northern Powerhouse, which he was supposed to be championing?

It turns out that he has not three jobs but six. The known annual salaries of four of them total more than £1,000,000 pa. Words are failing me here