Changing fortunes for the Osborne family

George Osborne might be famous for collecting jobs but is he having any success with them? Since leaving the Treasury in July 2016, the onetime master of British politics seems to have acquired a reverse Midas touch. Having quit as an MP at the 2017 election – when Theresa May’s setbacks meant he could have been first in line to succeed her – Osborne has tried his hand at various gigs with, err, varying degrees of success.

As editor of the Evening Standard, Osborne’s reign witnessed falling circulating, dozens of job cuts and losses which ran into the tens of millions. His long-awaited book ‘The Age of Unreason’ is still yet to be published, five years on, while the Osborne family wallpaper firm was forced to furlough more than 60 per cent of its staff. Boutique firm Robey Warshaw has only fallen behind its City rivals since Osborne joined in April while his tenure at Exor has coincided with the Italian giant becoming embroiled in the European Super League fiasco.

Publishing, journalism, banking and business: the austerity Chancellor has had more pursuits than Mr Benn. Let’s hope his stint as chairman of the British Museum – which Osborne begins in just two weeks’ time – does not see a similar disaster. The Elgin marbles have of course remained in London for 200 years but based on current form if anyone can lose them, it’s surely George. To add insult to injury, his fiancée Thea Rodgers oversaw the disastrous flotation of Deliveroo at the end of March.

All this contrasts sharply with the fortunes of Osborne’s eldest son Luke. The heir-in-line to the family baronetcy is already showing an abundance of entrepreneurial flair while still an undergraduate at Bristol University. The Old Pauline has registered his own nightclub business on Companies House under the name ‘The Constitution Limited.’ He and his co-directors have spent the summer entertaining Bertie’s club in Newquay, hosting nights which offer an ‘immersive genre-fluid return to raving.’

And tonight the budding tycoons are set to take their thriving business back to Bristol for their first drum and bass night there – just in time for freshers’ week. The event is set to be held at Basement 45 – described by one source as a ‘sweaty, subterranean bunker’– and promises to ‘smack shades of shit out of your Tuesday night.’ Music genres include grime, disco, techno and house with the ‘fantastic line up of young talent’ boasting names such as Vsylum, DJ Natworthy and Miffz.

Let’s hope boy George has more success in business than his dad.