George Osborne picked to lead British Museum

George Osborne has been appointed the next chair of the trustees of the British Museum, placing the former Conservative chancellor in one of the most prominent roles in UK culture. 

Osborne will take over in October from Sir Richard Lambert, former editor of the Financial Times and former director of the CBI business lobby, at the head of the 25-member board, which includes prominent cultural figures such as Mary Beard and Grayson Perry. 

Osborne said: “All my life I have loved the British Museum. To my mind, it is quite simply the greatest museum in the world. It’s a place that brings cultures together and tells the story of our common humanity.”

Minouche Shafik, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, chaired the seven-person appointments committee which the museum said “led an independent, open and thorough search process for a leader with a global perspective, with a demonstrable interest in culture and history.”

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden, one-time deputy chief of staff to former prime minister David Cameron, is said by colleagues to warmly welcome Osborne’s appointment.

“He has a lot of financial expertise,” said one ally of Dowden. “It’s important to have people like that running big arts institutions to help them recover from the pandemic.”

The British Museum is planning a major overhaul of its buildings and displays under a 10-year master plan for which it has yet to disclose costs but will require substantial investment. 

One friend of Osborne said the former chancellor was “not about to become a culture warrior”, overseeing the removal of statues with colonial links. The friend added: “George will be very much a bulwark for the centrist establishment.”

However, Osborne’s appointment hardly reflects Dowden’s recently expressed desire to have a more diverse group of people running the UK’s cultural institutions.

Writing recently in the Sunday Telegraph, Dowden said it was important they were not “solely governed by people from metropolitan bubbles”.

Osborne attended the elite St Paul’s school in west London and then Oxford university before embarking on a career in Tory politics, which culminated in him serving as Cameron’s chancellor from 2010-2016.

Osborne has slimmed down his portfolio of jobs in the past year, stepping down as editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard newspaper and from a part-time role at US fund manager BlackRock. He has also added a full-time role as a partner at boutique UK financial advisory firm Robey Warshaw, which has advised on some of the largest deals in the UK since it launched in 2013.

In taking up the role at the UK’s best known museum, Osborne will be grappling with heated issues ranging from demands for the restitution of contested objects, such as the Benin Bronzes and the Parthenon Marbles, to climate protests over its longstanding partnership with oil group BP. His appointment comes amid a push by the Conservative government to influence opinion at the senior levels of Britain’s cultural institutions.

The pandemic has worsened the squeeze on funding for cultural institutions, with closures and social distancing restrictions slashing visitor revenue, while government help is constrained by the pressure on the public finances.

The British Museum, founded in 1729, was the most popular visitor attraction in the UK in 2019, with 6.2m visits, according to VisitBritain, the British tourist authority.