George Osborne, Ex-Finance Chief of U.K., to Become Editor of Evening Standard

LONDON — Britain is no stranger to its leading figures moving between journalism and politics. Now, George Osborne, the former chancellor of the Exchequer, is set to be prominent in both spheres at once. Mr. Osborne, who was long mentioned as a potential successor to David Cameron as prime minister and who is thought to still have ambitions to lead Britain one day, was announced on Friday as the new editor of The Evening Standard, a London weekday newspaper that is among the country’s most read. The job will be the latest in a series of posts that Mr. Osborne has taken since he was replaced as chancellor last summer. In addition to retaining his seat in Parliament, representing the constituency of Tatton in northwestern England, Mr. Osborne joined the investment firm BlackRock as a part-time adviser this year. That position pays him an annual salary of 650,000 pounds, or about $800,000, and includes stock in the company, in return for 48 days of work a year. He has also delivered several paid speeches and receives $150,000 in stipend costs and travel expenses as a fellow at the Washington-based McCain Institute, according to his most recent entry in the British Parliament’s register of members’ financial interests. “Growing up as a Londoner, I’ve always known that the Evening Standard is an institution that plays a huge part in the life of the city and its people,” Mr. Osborne said in a statement published by the newspaper. “We will judge what the government, London’s politicians and the political parties do against this simple test: Is it good for our readers and good for London?” he said. Mr. Osborne, a member of the governing Conservative Party, was replaced as chancellor after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June. He had been a prominent supporter of the campaign to remain in the bloc and was not asked to join the new cabinet when Theresa May replaced Mr. Cameron as prime minister. His decision to remain in Parliament while editing The Evening Standard raises questions about how he will maintain the independence of the paper while representing his constituents. “This appointment is bad news for the reputation of politics, journalism and the relationship between the two,” Wes Streeting, an opposition Labour Party member of Parliament, said on Twitter. Others questioned how Mr. Osborne would manage his time. Patrick Wintour, the diplomatic editor at The Guardian, another British daily, whose father was editor of The Evening Standard, wrote: “My recollection is my father never saw editing the London Evening Standard as a part-time job.” Jess Phillips, another Labour member, said on Twitter that she had been asked to comment on Mr. Osborne’s appointment and “the answer is No, I can’t do anything til 8pm as I have a job to do as an MP.” The former finance minister has dismissed those concerns, however, arguing that because The Evening Standard is edited in the morning and Parliament votes in the afternoon, there was no problem. This will not be Mr. Osborne’s first foray into journalism. Gideon Rachman, now a columnist for The Financial Times, once interviewed him for a job at The Economist but turned him down because he lacked journalism experience. The link between politics and journalism is a strong one in Britain. Boris Johnson, the current foreign secretary, was a journalist before he entered politics and still writes for The Daily Telegraph. His brother Jo, himself a government minister, worked at The Financial Times before becoming a member of Parliament. And Michael Gove, a former cabinet minister and a leader of the campaign to leave the European Union, has gone back and forth. He started out as a journalist before entering politics, and after leaving the government last summer, managed to land an interview with President Trump for The Times of London. Evgeny Lebedev, who owns The Evening Standard, described Mr. Osborne as a person of “huge political achievement, and economic and cultural authority.” He added that the politician’s viewpoint — “liberal on social issues and pragmatic on economic ones” — closely matched that of The Evening Standard’s readers. “Once he put himself forward for the position, he was the obvious choice,” Mr. Lebedev added. Started in 1827 as a competitor to The Times of London, The Standard, as it was then known, started publishing an evening edition in 1859. Mr. Lebedev’s father Aleksandr, a Russian oligarch and former K.G.B. agent, bought the paper in 2009, transforming it into a free newspaper that was distributed to commuters across the British capital. It now has nearly 900,000 daily print readers, in addition to its online readership. The Evening Standard supported Mr. Osborne’s Conservatives in the 2015 general election. Mr. Osborne will take up the post in May, replacing Sarah Sands, who will join BBC Radio 4 as the editor of its flagship morning news program, “Today.”