So, George, let's start with Brexit. Where in your estimation is it going to end?

I think the most likely outcome is a long delay. But that doesn't mean that is certain, because we can either leave with no deal or we could revoke Article 50.

Do you think that’s the fundamental choice?

I think you may well find that's the fundamental choice, because if we're heading for departure without a deal, the only way to stop it in the last moment is to revoke Article 50.

And you don't sense that your party is moving to no deal and might somehow get a few others that help it over the line?

Well, I think the centre of gravity is moving, unfortunately, in the Conservative parliamentary party, towards supporting departure without a deal partly out of frustration, partly because the Brexiteers have the whip hand.

People go on about project fear, not least because of the campaign that you ran in the referendum. No deal: what does it mean?

Well, I think there's a short-term cost to no deal. I mean all the things about supplies, medicines, airplanes not being able to land and so on. Personally, I think the even more damaging impact is the long-term reputation of the country and its relationship with its nearest neighbours like France and Germany.

Which have been damaged already.

Oh, hugely damaged already, but catastrophically damaged if, frankly, we're tearing up our economic and security ties with our closest allies in the world. And I think it would. You assume people will put the jigsaw puzzle back together again, but quite often in life if there's a nasty divorce then things get worse. They don’t get better when people leave.

But when its countries it often ends in war.

Well, I don’t think we're about to go to war with France. But I do think putting together our relationship with those likeminded democracies we share our continent with is not going to be straightforward if we walk out the exit door.

Have you been surprised at just how bad it has been, the whole process?

What, the handling of it?

Everything about it.

I don’t think I have been surprised because I fundamentally thought it was a disastrous idea and I could see the implications of what it meant. I mean, did I predict all the twists and turns of it? No.

Do you wish you fought harder against David Cameron not to hold the referendum in the first place?

Well, I felt pretty hard inside, but my relationship with David and with the team I was part of, the cabinet at the time, was that we argued about things in private but when we agreed something we went out for it. I don't think it would have made any difference if I'd said, “I'm resigning as chancellor.”

No, but generally you think with strategic choices that you two were usually on the same page. So why did you end up on a different page on this one? And why couldn't you have prevailed if you felt as strongly as you did that it was the wrong thing to do?

Well, I did feel strongly. I argued my case. I thought it would split the Conservative Party, which it has, and I thought it would put business offside with a Conservative government. And then fundamentally I thought there was a risk we will lose.

You always thought it was a risk?

I thought it was a risk.

I don’t think David did.

I think people were too sanguine about the result, frankly. I mean, not just the cabinet I was part of but the whole political world. And, of course, in the end you find a situation where the whole of parliament votes for this referendum, it's not just Conservative MPs. Labour MPs voted for it too and I don't think people really thought through [that] we are endangering a 50-year-old relationship with those we share this continent with.

'I totally accept responsibility for being part of a team that had that referendum'

And if I were to, say, accept that Tony's team bear some responsibility, in that you could argue that Iraq and other things lead to Corbyn and that Corbyn maybe wasn't the right leader for the Labour Party at the time of the referendum, would you also set the austerity was a big, big part of the of the eventual result?

First of all, I totally accept responsibility for being part of a team that had that referendum. I was the chancellor of the exchequer of that government. Personally, I don't identify austerity as a cause.

OK, cuts to public services and low growth and wages? Poverty?

Well, I would say I don't think a historian would find it very difficult to explain that if you have a massive economic crash, which was unparalleled in our lifetimes, that it’s going to have a big impact on the political system, because that's what's happened at all British points in history.

Which usually ends in war...

I would say the financial crash and the consequences of that, which were cuts to public services and...

But they were choices you made.

I don’t think they were choices.

You could have gone and done what Ed Balls suggested you did, which was just a bit of a looser fiscal policy.

If you go back to the arguments of the day, read Alistair Darling’s memoirs, he says they realised they were going to have to take big cuts to public services. He was going to put up VAT if the government had been re-elected. And even if you take Ed Balls, who actually I get on with now very well, but he was arguing for a little bit more spending than I was proposing, but [the] same essential plan, which was you had to do something about these unsustainably high deficits and the fact that the country was poorer and couldn’t afford what it had. But I do think you can identify the seeds of discontent in the economic crash, in a sense that immigration was, in some ways, putting pressure on public services that were already under strain because of the cuts. And that very effective link, sadly effective, that the Brexiteers made between taking control, controlling our borders and money going into the NHS...

A lie. Why didn't you call that out at the time?

Well, I would argue we did.

You didn’t though. What David Cameron was worried about was blue on blue, we're going to have to come back together. Don't go for Boris. But actually I don’t understand why you didn't absolutely go for them on that.

Well, I think if you look, there are also things we've got wrong in that campaign. It was a boring campaign. It was this enormous coalition of the TUC and the CBI and Corbyn and Cameron and the Greens, and it moved at the pace of the slowest person.

Did you not feel that you were in charge of it?

No. I mean, I was very frustrated as David was, about the campaign [not] working. We just fought and won a general election, so we knew what a winning campaign felt and looked like.

Was there a danger you tried to do the same thing?

Well, I think we ended up falling back on the one thing that was working, which was people who were otherwise inclined to vote to leave the EU were worried about the economic consequences. And that's the kind of classic campaign that we fought in the 2015 general election, that we had actually just fought in the Scottish referendum a year earlier. So we fell back on that because there was no residue of enthusiasm in this country for European Union membership. The security argument didn't wash with people. When David Cameron set that out, people thought he was being alarmist about the third world war. As it happens, I think European Union is an incredibly successful project for stopping war.

'Michael [Gove] had always said he wanted to leave the EU... With Boris Johnson, I’d never heard him express that view'

You didn't take Ireland seriously.

Well, I went to Newry. I was the first chancellor of the exchequer in about 100 years, literally, to go to Newry, on the Irish border, and talk about the Irish border problems. But the piece I did with broadcast, it wasn’t wrong, but it wasn't as interesting. Tony Blair and John Major went to Derry. So attempts were made, but I'm not saying any of these was successful because we lost!

But were you surprised? Because I know David was, as I’ve talked to him about this. Were you surprised at just how venal Boris Johnson was and were you all surprised at the fact that Michael Gove jumped to the other side?

Well, I wasn't surprised that Michael Gove jumped because I've known Michael a long time and he's a friend of mine. Lots of people can’t understand why I'm still friends with him.

Are you still friends with him?

Still friends. I’m a good friend of his. And I've tried to make sure, by the way, that this referendum doesn't shatter all my personal friendships and relationships.

But Johnson?

Well, I'll come on to him. First of all, Michael had always said he wanted to leave the EU. With Boris Johnson, I’d never heard him express that view. He wrote those two articles. So with him it was much less clear that he actually wanted to leave the EU. And maybe he was good enough to position himself for a future Tory leadership contest.

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But it was a pretty venal campaign – the lies about health, the lies about Turkey.

I mean, there were loads of lies told in that campaign.

How do you take the line that they take that it was lying on both sides?

Well, I don't accept that. I think there was a serious attempt on the Remain side to spell out the economic consequences of what was going on. And if you look at those forecasts, they're often dismissed now. The medium-term economic forecasts produced by the Treasury on my watch, just before the referendum, are still almost spot on with the forecast today. The country's seen its currency devalued. We've lost 2.5 per cent of our GDP that we would otherwise have had in the intervening couple years. That's this government's official estimate. So there have been real economic consequences. And there will be more to come.

Now, you’re commendably loyal to David Cameron. I admire loyalty to former prime ministers – it’s a much-needed quality in public life. If a journalist out there now had a story that was really bad for Cameron, would they think twice about trying to put it on your desk? Do you feel that your friendships ever get in the way of your new life?

As a newspaper editor? I try to edit the paper on the basis of what the readers want and should know.

Yes, but they want Brexit. They told me that’s all they want.

First of all I edit the newspaper absolutely with an eye to what the reader wants. What makes the Evening Standard a good product is that this is the paper you've got to pick up to find out what’s going on in British politics. So obviously if we didn't cover a lot of things, people would say it's not such a good product. Second, does it have attitude? Absolutely. It's unapologetically pro-European, pro-business, socially liberal, those sorts of things. And it doesn't have a huge amount of time for the other side of the argument because it's expressing a view on behalf of London, I think.

But London elected Sadiq as mayor and you’re not that keen on him.

Well, I think he gets a pretty fair showing in the paper.

Do you think so?

Yes, absolutely. And we will often fairly regularly run pieces by him. Does that mean it's uncritical? Of course not. He’s the mayor. He should be held to account for promises made on knife crime, for example, or housing, that he's not delivering on. But where he's done the good things, like trying to bring communities together and speak for London on things like the European issue, we've been very supportive.

And does Mr Lebedev interfere at all?

No.

Never?

No.

You're talking to somebody who’s worked for Murdoch and Maxwell. I know how these things work!

Well I never met Maxwell, but I’ve met Rupert.

You’re telling me he doesn't sort of say... He’s a bit too close to Boris Johnson my liking.

No. He has not intervened in the politics of the paper. He takes a close interest in the big campaigns we run and they're often his thoughts and his ideas. For example, we did a big campaign over Christmas, on HIV/Aids with the Elton John Aids Foundation, and that was Lebedev’s big idea. But he owns the newspaper and by the way it’s a very good campaign that has changed some attitudes. But then the politics, no, that's my judgement and my job.

'Believe it or not, I’ve sat down and had a drink with Theresa May since all of this, a perfectly pleasant one'

As things stand here and now, who do you think you will come out for in the London mayoral elections?

To be honest, I don't know. I mean genuinely. I always used to think when I was back in politics that papers sold themselves too cheaply, that if you committed too early to a party and we went out of our way to try to get that. You gave away some of your mystery and your purchase and your power. And we will make a judgement of who we think is the best candidate. Whether it's Sadiq or Shaun Bailey, we'll wait and see.

And what would your front page say if Theresa May suddenly said, “I know I said I was going to go before the next election, but I decided actually I want to stay”? What would you say about that?

I think we would be not very sympathetic.

On a scale of one to ten where would you rate her premiership thus far?

I don’t know as it hasn't ended yet!

Thus far! Are we closer to ten or closer to one?

Well, we will see. I don’t think it’s been a spectacular success. Let’s put it that way.

No. Tell me about when she sacked you.

Well, I mean, I wasn't completely surprised. Because I could see...

Because you screwed the economy?

Well, the economy was doing pretty well at that point! No, I could see she was coming in as a Remain-supporting prime minister [who had] just won the contest.

Did you see her as a Remain supporter?

She was a little...

I thought you all called her the submarine.

...sotto voce, I think that’s fair to say, during that campaign. But you pay the price actually. It's an interesting thing about prime ministers: the thing that makes you is often the thing that breaks you. I think because she didn't express clear views on Europe and then came in with the Brexit means Brexit she's never really known where she is in this debate.

What do you think her real view is?

Well, I think she's clearly... When I first met her, in the Nineties, she was a new Conservative MP and she was on the liberal wing of the Conservative Party and she was quite pro-European. And I think what I’ll absolutely accept is that I thought she was a good home secretary. I voted for her to be the party leader as an MP. I think she held that brief down, but she became increasingly frustrated that we couldn't deliver this immigration target that, in my view, should never have been made.

Why did you do that?

Well, because when it was first made, without getting into the history of it, we were trying to have an immigration policy that wasn't too controversial. Remember, we had fought the Michael Howard 2005 campaign which had been controversial...

My favourite campaign. So bad. So bad.

Yeah, well I wasn’t in charge of it. And then we were the people who picked up the pieces after that campaign and we wanted to be not controversial on immigration. And the target of hundreds of thousands, or 100,000, was actually where immigration was about the time we got elected, and then it went up a lot after we got in, partly because, I would argue, we made the country a more attractive place for people to come to.

She does seem to have a far bigger obsession with immigration even than most Tories.

Well, I think as home secretary, and I saw it that when you’re chancellor you get very focused on your economic targets, she got very focused on the immigration target. And all the levers she could pull around students and economic migrants and family return and refugees, she either didn't want to pull or couldn't pull. And then you ended up just focusing on this EU free movement and I think she became very focused on that.

And so tell me about when you get the phone call. Prime minister would like to see you.

Well, I was living in Downing Street.

'Her advice was that I needed to go away and get to know the Conservative Party better'

Of course you were. You were next door.

I was in my flat.

So you get the phone call and wander down.

She says they don’t need you in the government anymore. I mean I had worked it out.

Did she do small talk?

I should say before I say anything, I said nothing about this meeting. And then her team at the time went and gleefully briefed about it.

So you feel justified therefore in telling me everything.

Well, it’s now reasonably well known that her advice to me was I should go away and get to know the Conservative Party better, which I then spent two-and-a-half years doing.

And what did you think you lacked in your knowledge? You didn’t do enough leafletting and mailing?

Well, I haven’t got around to that. But I think she was saying that in the referendum I had been too partisan, which of course other Conservatives, not least Brexit Conservatives felt. It’s interesting, I had always during my career tried to match getting ahead in politics with what I believed. And they sometimes come into conflict, particularly in the early regimes of Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, but then in that referendum I could see I was shredding my political capital with my colleagues the more I went on. But I actually thought as chancellor of the exchequer this is bloody close and maybe I can shift the dial a couple of per cent on the economy and the economic message. And I was sort of consciously trashing my own career, but I felt it was so important to win this contest, that leaving was such a disaster. And anyway if we lost, that will be the end of us anyway.

Did you sense that she was likely to do what she has subsequently done, which is constantly veer to that Brexit side, the ERG side of the argument? Is that what she meant when she said you don’t understand the party, that that’s where you’ve got to lean?

Well, it’s easy to criticise from the outside, but I think the fundamental mistakes she made was after getting elected. She had to get elected as a Remain-supporting MP and she had to prove she was committed to Brexit, which is what "Brexit means Brexit" meant. Having done that, her fundamental mistake was not to do what you should do whenever you become the leader of the party, which is then move to the centre of your party to bring people together. And she sided with the hard Brexiteers. She drew those disastrous red lines, which have cursed the country ever since and cursed her premiership, or maybe hung over the country ever since and cursed her premiership. And even when there was a chance for a rethink, which was at the time she lost the majority in the general election, she doesn't rethink. In fact, if anything, she hardens the line. For the first year as prime minister she held open the option of staying in the customs union and that would have solved many of the problems she's got today. So it's a terrible mistake, whether it’s in the Labour Party or the Conservative Party, to basically be driven by your extreme.

But she’s made mistakes every stage. She hasn’t handled any part of this well.

Well, I think it's fairly obvious or else she wouldn’t be in the mess she’s in now.

Do you think she can survive days, weeks, months?

I think fundamentally a prime minister who doesn't want to go is difficult to dislodge unless people are prepared to break cover and try to pull her down. And at the moment, no one really wants to do that.

Because of the fear of an election?

It’s not a fear of election. I think it’s the kind of classic “he who wields the knife never wears the crown”. By the way, there's lots of precedent in history, like Margaret Thatcher. Yes, pretty ruthless against Ted Heath and she walked away with it.

And when [Thatcher] finally went it was the cabinet who brought her down. Are you surprised about how pusillanimous the [current] cabinet has been?

I think they're all making all these calculations about Brexit and where they are personally and so on.

But that seems to be coming before the country for a lot of them.

Well, the country also wants something impossible, which is Brexit without the cost of Brexit.

I think the country doesn't want Brexit.

Well, maybe that's shifting, but where I am – I'm not an MP anymore – but where I have some sympathy for the MPs is that they're constantly told there have never been a such a useless bunch of MPs. They're being asked to do something that’s impossible. So it’s not surprising that they’re failing.

And in the cabinet they are totally dishonest about that. Because they are pretending that there's something that can be done that they can support. But this can't be done without damaging ourselves.

Well, that is why they're collectively struggling, yeah. And I certainly agree with you that the country would be better led if you had people saying – and there are some very capable people in the cabinet who can do this – "This is what was promised. It's not deliverable, by the way," many of them didn't themselves promise it. "And what we can do is take the hit and force you as a country to make a choice. Are you prepared to bear the cost of Brexit? Or do you want to rethink?" That is not a question either she nor the Conservative government at the moment is asking the country.

Was your very witty tweet that she should go away and spend some time getting to know her speaker a moment of coldly delivered revenge?

If you think too much about the social media posting it doesn't work. You've got to just do it.

But do you sometimes sit there and think, "Oh, I can do a really, really nasty piece about her on this." It’s one thing to be sacked. It’s another thing to be sacked when you are the chancellor and you've helped Cameron get them into power. You gave her the majority that she subsequently has thrown away and she's basically saying to you you’re not up to this. I’d be a bit pissed off with that.

It wasn't the happiest day of my life, put it that way. What I've tried to do, I mean people don't believe me, so I accept this, but I've tried to take the soap opera out of it. I mean, I've been in politics for long enough to know there's always a soap opera. Who's up, who's down, does so and so want revenge on so and so. I try to edit this paper as a professional editor giving the newspaper character. And I think the faults we pointed out in the prime minister or in the Brexit strategy have been borne out by events.

You didn't feel it was like a vendetta?

No. And we made calls two years ago. I said she didn't have a majority to pass a deal and she’d have to go and get a customs union, single market membership, to get Labour support. I said six months ago there would have to be a delay to Brexit. I would like to think the Evening Standard is calling these things first before other media outlets. And I'm doing that as a service to my readers by trying to read politics. And if I was just sort of blinded by the sort of personal animus then it would not be a very good newspaper. And it's not that. And believe it or not I’ve sat down and had a drink with her since all of this. It was perfectly pleasant!

She’s not a great small talker, though, is she?

Well, actually we had a good conversation.

Tell me about that then.

Oh, no.

Wait for Number Ten to brief that one as well.

No. There is a different team at Number Ten now.

OK, yeah, yeah. So what do you feel about her now when she comes on the TV and you see her? What do you feel about her?

It’s not particularly personal.

'I think it’s unlikely that Boris Johnson is going to be prime minister. Put it this way: the Brexit campaign told the public a lot of things that aren’t true'

I have this real sense that she just can't do it.

But I think she is basically a prime minister in name only because she can't lead.

What are the qualities she lacks that have prevented her from being good prime minister.

Any prime minister in a situation with no majority having to deliver Brexit would be in hot water.

Merkel’s never had a majority.

I'm saying any prime minister in this situation would be in a hole. But there are things you can do to climb out of the hole. David Cameron, and when I was chancellor myself, we had fewer Tory MPs than Theresa May has, right? What did we do? We went and formed an alliance with the Liberal Democrats, which everyone thought was undeliverable, would fall apart, was heavily criticised on left and right. But it gave the country a stable majority. She has not been able to construct a broader majority.

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What is in her that makes her unable to do that?

Well, I think you’d have to interview her, but collectively in the Conservative Party there seems to be a resignation to losing the support of urban areas, losing the support of younger people, losing the support of ethnic minorities, losing the support of gay people. So I worked very hard...

If you’re a political party that is madness!

I worked extremely hard with David to win the war with those people. And we did get it by the time we got re-elected. We had something I'd never thought was possible when I came to politics and Tony Blair was all the centre. And we got a majority of gay people voting Conservative. We got almost half of Indian-origin people voting Conservative. We won in areas where we have never won before. We won back middle-class areas.

Do you think that project has gone? Do you think Cameron’s big project is over?

I think there are a lot of people who would like to see it revived. I would call it modern, compassionate conservatism. I don’t think it's attached particularly to David or me. I think there are lots of people in the Conservative Party and parliament who are really frustrated. And you can see it kind of coming apart at the seams. There are lots of good Conservatives who want to hear more about the country as it is becoming, not the country as it was.

And when do you think she should go?

It’s not my decision really.

Who would you want to replace her?

Well, I don't know is the short answer, because I don’t know who's running.

Who do you definitely not want to replace her?

Oh, I’m not getting into all that.

Why not?

Because you’ll have to wait and pick up your free copy of the Evening Standard.

No, but you’re a voice.

I think you have to start with what is the job this person has got to do. This person has to reconnect the Conservative Party with modern Britain.

It's always about the party!

Well, that’s the first job, right? And then they have to, remember it’s a party contest first, and then as prime minister, they have to lead us out of this Brexit mess. And, to me, that is a long delay while we rethink our strategy as a country.

Right, so Johnson can do that.

Well, we'll see. We'll see what they've got to offer. So I'm not going to get into names. I’ll tell you what is interesting. If you take the March that you were involved in on Saturday, there were hundreds of thousands of people who were not Socialist Workers carrying Socialist Workers banners and chanting about austerity and whatever. There were hundreds of thousands of people, ordinary families, Middle England people, many of whom have been in the past Conservative supporters right up until very recently and should be in the future. But at the moment the government and the Conservative Party is telling them that they are either saboteurs, traitors, have no say in what’s happening. And that is frankly disastrous, both for the party and the country.

Sorry to press you on this, but Boris Johnson is the ultimate... He is he is the leader of that. He has been a big part of that. So why can't you just state, as I think you should have done during the referendum campaign by the way, that guy is not fit for high office? He's a liar. He's a charlatan. He’s a cheat. Why can't you say that guy should not be prime minister?

I think he's demonstrated an admirable ability to change his opinion on things.

And you admire that?

I’m not going to get into who should be the next leader.

Just give me that one. What was the worst thing you said about Johnson in the paper?

I think we were pretty critical when he was unable to remember why Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Iran.

That alone! But his conduct during and since the referendum is a total disgrace and you guys should call it out. And David should have called it out during the referendum.

During the referendum we had a big debate internally about whether to take on...

And you didn’t because it was about the party.

Well, to be fair, one of the problems – and I think frankly the BBC didn't cover itself in glory in that referendum – was that the blue on blue soap opera was dominating the headlines. So, two days before Britain voted to leave, the lead story on the BBC was Steve Hilton, a former Tory advisor to David Cameron, was attacking David Cameron. I remember phoning the BBC and I'm saying, "We are about to make a decision that is going to completely change the country." What I'm saying is there's a reason why we didn't want to. That’s what they were doing.

I don’t think that’s the real reason.

Well, we wanted to try to get people focused on the issues rather than the Tory soap opera.

I think it's because you're all a bunch of mates and you went to college together. You’d all been in the Bullingdon Club together and you didn't want to fall out. Seriously. I mean, the guy should not be allowed near high office again and you won't even tell me that you don't think he should be prime minister. I find it incredible.

You’ll have to wait and see what the Evening Standard says about a Tory leadership contest, which might happen.

So will you try to get your owner to stop taking [Johnson] on his little private jet to Italy and having a nice time with them out there? Because that's a bit of a corrupt relationship in my view as well. But you're still friendly with Gove. By the way, if the headline of this interview was "Johnson could be prime minister, says Osborne" then you're OK with that?

Well, I think it's unlikely the paper is going to endorse Boris Johnson. But you'll have to wait.

But you don't agree with me that he is a liar, a cheat and a charlatan, who should have been called out by his colleagues a long time ago?

During the Brexit campaign he told the public a lot of things that were not true.

So he's a liar, charlatan, who changes his mind every five minutes. What about Gove? I'm amazed you still go off to bloody see Wagner opera together.

You’d be welcome to come along.

No. Too long. You must have come close to rupture during the referendum.

Yeah. But I think first of all, as I said, I think I could let the whole thing shatter all my personal friendships.

Did it shatter any? You don’t need to tell me who, but did it?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There are people I don't speak to – to Michael Gove’s credit, and not that you will give him any, I'll say two things: one was he was the only other senior conservative who didn't want a referendum. Right? He and me were the only two people arguing in the room against having a referendum. So you cannot really blame him that we had a referendum, except that we were all part of the government. And second, he made it clear all along that he had always been against EU membership. He used to write this when he was a journalist in the Nineties. And he's been entirely consistent on that. So you also can't complain, as people do with Boris and others, that they've changed their opinion or whatever. And then finally, at the moment, he is also trying to stop the country crashing out of the EU without a deal.

'At the moment, the Conservative Party and dare I say the Labour Party have all been drifting along'

So you’re backing him?

I didn't vote for him. Unfortunately, I voted for Theresa May. If I had my vote again, I probably would have voted for him.

And how do you feel about the Jeremy Hunts and Sajid Javids who we know are much closer to you, politically, but that are now pretending to be all Brexity.

They'll have to make their own decisions. I know lots of them and worked with lots of them. They're very capable, sensible people. I guess, general advice to anyone at the top of politics is you've got to stay anchored in what you actually believe is the right thing for the country. But, Alastair, in politics there are lots of twists and turns. Some days are up or down or whatever. And you have to be pragmatic. You can't be an ideologue. But if you're not fundamentally rooted in what you think is the right outcome for the country, your government and the government you're advising can go completely awry and I always tried to stay basically rooted in what I believed and then adjust and deal with circumstances as they were thrown at me, using that as the kind of lodestar. So if you're running in this leadership contest promising one thing which is undeliverable – a painless Brexit, a Brexit bonus – and then you find, having won the contest the day afterwards, you will have as disastrous a premiership as Theresa May.

So don’t elect anybody who’s going to do that. But they’re all doing that!

Yes, but they're not in the contest yet. They’re in the cabinet, which is different. Right? When you get to the contest, the person who is honest with the country about Brexit, about the compromise... If you want Brexit, you're going to be poorer. You're going to be less secure. We're going to be more and more isolated country. That's the price of Brexit. If you want to be more international and richer and better off, and with the poorest parts of the country better off, then you have to accept pooling of sovereignty, working with your neighbours.

Your members are not going to elect that person, are they?

The Conservative membership is the same membership that supported the Cameron government: international development, green government, gay marriage. Yeah, we had our arguments and people disagree with it, but the Conservative membership as a whole supported all of those things. And that was only two or three years ago, four years. Right? So parties need to be led. And don't tell me in the Labour Party that there aren't still many sensible social democrats on the centre left of British politics who despair at what is happening. But many of them have taken a decision [that it's] better to stay in and try to modify these things. Let’s take Keir Starmer. I don't know him personally at all, but I think he's doing a pretty admirable job. Is our British politics better served by him walking out the door and resigning from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet or is it better having him there trying to be a bit more sensible than his leader? I think a lot of people I know in the cabinet or my friends or people I work with, they're having to bite their tongue because they've taken a view, which is it's better to be trying to shape events from the inside than shout from the outside.

But let's be honest. Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid, they have moved to where they moved because they know she's dead. And they're waiting till she dies. And then they're going to position themselves, because they know that their party won’t elect someone who tells the truth about Brexit.

We’ll see. We don't know who's going to run, but we will see what people say. My own advice would be win it on your own terms.

And tell the truth about Brexit.

Most of these leadership contests – I ran David Cameron’s leadership contest – in the past have been: "Who's this person? What's their background? What's their message about social mobility?" It proved pretty effective. This leadership election is not really about that. It's going to be: question one, how do you get us out of this Brexit mess? Right?

And do think therefore somebody who comes along and says the way out of this Brexit mess is to find a way literally out of this Brexit mess – we don't do it – would they have any chance at all of leading the Conservative Party?

I think if you are straight with the Conservative Party in this contest there is no reason why you can't win. Politics is about leaders.

Well, is that Amber Rudd or Matt Hancock or Philip Hammond?

We'll see. We'll see who. But in politics, people can be leaders, right? And you can shift opinion.

'A general election today? I think it’d be close'

That’s what we’ve lacked!

And at the moment the Conservative Party and, dare I say, the Labour Party have all been drifting along. Drifting rightwards or leftwards depending on which party. And what they need is some good, charismatic, honest leadership and that is available if people would let themselves be themselves.

Do you think that the country, as I wrote in your paper this morning, do you think the country has kind of decided that they're not having Corbyn as prime minister? Or do you think he might be?

Well, I think to write off the opposition when they're only a few seats away from being able to form an alliance in the Commons that puts them in charge is a mistake. Do I think Corbyn has done everything possible to make a Labour victory less likely? Yes. I think he's hindering Labour’s chances not helping them. And would Labour be much further ahead if they had another leader? Yes.

What is it like having John McDonnell across the despatch box, where you can usually work people out?

Well, I’ve got his Mao’s Red Book, which he threw at me in the House Of Commons. OK, I don't agree with his politics. I think he's more presentable than Corbyn. I think fundamentally what puts people off Corbyn is not just his views, as there are many people who have some sympathy for those views on the economics, it's the associations he made with unpleasant people. It's the failure to sing the national anthem properly. It's things that just really offend good, decent people in this country. And I think if you remove that, even if you had a very left-wing leader of the Labour Party, because of what the Tory party is doing the door would be open to a Labour victory now. The Tory Party can shut that door if they were to move back to the centre and represent the mainstream.

I know it's not going to happen but let’s say there is a general election today. Maybe Corbyn?

I think it would be close, yeah.

And you think he could win?

Well he only needs to win [a few seats] and not just him, but the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, as they’d all be in an alliance together. They need to win, I think, like five seats off the Conservatives so it’s not very many. But because Corbyn’s not been successful it's repelling people. So that's why it's close.

Just very briefly, going back to your time as chancellor, I'm sure you've read my last diaries. You'll be aware that I was very angry that Labour, and Tony’s successes in my view, allowed you to get away with this idea that "Labour crashed the car. That's why we added the cuts." And we never really properly defended our record. Were you surprised that you pretty much were the only political strategist around the world who was able to pin the crisis so directly onto one government? Or was that inevitable?

Well, first of all, I think they do bear some of the responsibility. I mean, they were in office at the time and decisions were made about banking regulation or about the finances of the country, which made Britain more vulnerable to the global crash. But without going over all of that, frankly, something like that happens on your watch you're screwed anyway, right? And I think almost all the governments that were in office eventually went. And, well, Merkel no, but of course the crisis didn't affect Germany nearly as much as everyone else.

That’s because it’s a strong and stable country.

There are things we can learn from Germany.

**They had that brilliant, very rough finance minister. **

Wolfgang Schroeder. Of all the finance ministers I've worked with, he was he was the one I was closest to.

Just on your new life, I know a lot of people in football and I always am amazed by people like Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher who seem to find punditry kind of almost as innovative as being a player, when I just think that must be so second best. Do you not feel that this, now, is second best?

Well, I wouldn’t say it's punditry.

No, I know you’re not a pundit, but does it not feel second best?

Look, did I want to be fired as chancellor the exchequer? No.

**Do you not wish you were there now? **

No, not particularly because...

**You don’t wish you were going through the lobbies tonight, voting on this and making a difference and being part of that? Because, be honest, you do love the political game. **

Of course I enjoy politics and I gave most of my life to politics. But this is an amazing thing to do. It's all consuming. It's fantastically interesting and complicated. I love all the bits of it, which is not just what's the right policy, but how to get a policy implemented and how you present it is all that I loved. But it is also pretty damaging. I mean it's a bit of a crazy business and it's only when I stopped, I realised, my god, I was working every hour of the week...

Now you’ve got about ten jobs!

Well, it's still not as all consuming as being chancellor of the exchequer and I have been chancellor and shadow chancellor for eleven years. That’s a long period, so I think the trap when you leave politics for whatever reason is you end up you go on the speaker circuit. You get paid, essentially, your annual salary for speeches and it's very...

Soul destroying?

It’s very transactional. And you're not building anything and you're basically talking about what other people are doing.

But that’s what you’re doing now.

Well, no, because I decided after doing that for a year that I needed to do something real. And I wanted a real second career and a real job and going to edit a newspaper is a real job. There are 200 people out there in the newsroom who depend on my editorial judgements and on our ability to make this newspaper pay for itself.

But you just said yourself that you're going and you're talking about stuff that other people are doing.

I don't mind doing that, because I'm also shaping the issue. Of course, it's not possible to say, "George Osborne, let’s forget he was chancellor for all those years." I was involved in these events. Of course I understand that and I don't mind talking about it and the newspaper needs to talk about it. And, by the way, there are big decisions affecting the country.

Are they allowed? Have they got free rein if they want to sort of say, "Look at all the people on the streets here," and you don't have to go very far to see them now. Could they write a piece now saying they are the direct responsibility of George Osborne's strategy as chancellor?

Well, it wouldn't be an accurate piece so they can’t do that.

'There’s a golden opportunity to create a Remain party if we go ahead with the European elections'

But could they do that?

They can absolutely cover, and we do, the homeless problem in London.

But you don’t really pin it on...

Because I don't think that's true, right?

It’s got to be a factor? Universal credit? A huge part of poverty in this country. Do you cover food banks very much? I’m not saying you’re solely responsible but...

We are actually campaigning about food banks.

OK, but could I write a piece for you saying, "Piss off with your food bank campaign, Osborne. This is your fault", which I could do for the Daily Mirror say? Wuld you allow me to write a piece saying that?

I'm absolutely open to people writing balanced pieces that include the history of the government I was part of.

But do you not think the fact that you've been such a high-profile serving politician is bound to, even subconsciously, make people think, "Oh, I can’t say that"?

Of course, it's very different from the history of most editors. In fact, of all editors it's unique and, no, no one in modern British history has gone from high office to editing a newspaper.

**It's usually the other way. **

Yeah, and with great effect.

I think Dacre should have got in to politics. He’d have been great.

With it there are disadvantages, but there are also advantages. And the advantages are you get someone who I hope readers feel can anticipate where events are going, inform them of things, and also has the confidence to make editorial judgement calls. So, the Evening Standard is not shy about saying what it thinks. And I sometimes think of it as like conducting a great orchestra. There are really brilliant violinists and people play the clarinet and whatever, but a good newspaper has a character and identity and I think the Evening Standard has a strong character and a strong identity and it's reflected in the success of the paper out there.

OK. Are you not a bit troubled... Have the Saudis got money in it? Did I read that?

There is an investment from a Saudi media company in the holding company that includes them.

Is that a good thing?

It's a good thing that people want to invest in British journalism.

Right, but [what about] Khashoggi?

Yeah. And of course that was appalling and we covered that extensively in the paper. But the days when British newspapers were owned by Britons, I think, passed about 100 years ago, right?

**And has that been good for our culture? **

Well, this isn't a charity. And newspapers are not public service broadcasters, not the BBC. They are privately owned businesses. And, by the way, you wouldn't want government newspapers or public newspapers. And this is an international country that attracts business and investment to people.

But you also know why people put their money into newspapers. Part ego – the sort of Maxwell thing – but also power and influence, so you have Saudi Arabia, where MBS has pretty strict control over his own media, but then sort of comes over here and would maybe get involved in something like that. Is that good for our culture?

As I say, it’s a Saudi media company. All I can say is the great thing about a newspaper is there's no hidden agenda, because it's all there and black and white every day.

**Up to a point. **

And you can see we cover criticism of the Saudi government as aggressively as anyone else. And we cover the death of that poor Saudi journalist as much as anyone else. And ultimately the test of it is this: first of all, you can see it in print every day; and second, if I felt I was being compromised, it's not like I couldn't go and do something else. So I'm a check on the editorial integrity, as any editor should be.

On the other geopolitical stuff, do you feel at all you’ve gotten too cosy with the Chinese, given what they're up to now?

No, I don't at all, because I think there... I mean, briefly put, here is the world's biggest country [by] population and the longest existing civilisation on earth. And for 18 of the last 20 centuries, it's been the biggest economy, and it's going to be again shortly. Now we can either say that's illegitimate. We are going to confront it. We're going to contain it and we're going to talk our aircraft carriers off shore and head down a path of confrontation and possibly even conflict. And that is what's often happened in the world when you fail to deal with these new emerging forces. Or we can say let's try to make them partners in stability and peace, by the way, just like the European Union did 70 years ago. That doesn't mean I approve of that political system and the lack of human rights. It doesn't mean that I think their theft of intellectual property is acceptable and so on, but I'd much rather work with them trying to solve these problems and solve other problems in the world than head mindlessly down a path of confrontation. I've not seen... What is the strategy of, like, confronting China?

**No, I broadly agree with you. **

And then this is just not smart.

What about if you take Trump, Europe, Putin, China, those four baskets of alliance, how would you put those?

Well I wouldn’t leave the Europe basket just at the moment.

Well would you put that as the most important one at the moment?

Of what?

Of our relationships?

© Getty Images

Yeah, absolutely.

And where does Trump figure?

Well, America is our most important security relationship.

And Trump?

And it exists beyond who is the president. OK, as it happens with Trump, and I tried to do this in the newspaper, there are some things he's done which I approve off. I think some of his tax reform is very similar to things I did as chancellor and makes the American economy more competitive.

Do you not think he is a hideous human being?

I think the problem with him if you're his ally, America’s allies, you just don't know how he's going to react to things and an unpredictable ally is not a reliable ally and that's a big problem for Europe.

**And what about you? Do you feel his values are the same as yours? **

No.

In what way?

Well, I’m not getting into... I mean, I haven't paid porn stars to do whatever. I don’t have his values but...

**I was thinking more the racism and the sexism, but now that you put it like that! Putin? What do you think of Putin? **

I think...

By the way, I always ask about Putin. Every time.

I think the character of Trump kind of does a bit detract from... People are so blinded by their dislike of him.

And their like of him?

Yeah. And of course he’s basically proved that politics has been totally disrupted by technology in our lifetimes just like it's disrupted newspapers and music and all that by showing you could win a presidential election campaign off your mobile phone. When you and I were active in politics nobody believed that was remotely possible. Indeed, it wasn't possible because they didn't have the technology. Now Putin, again, the thing about him is [that] what is deeply frustrating is we should be trying to work with Russia. Russia, again, is a long-standing ancient civilisation and all that and every time we try they go and do something that is totally unacceptable, like kill people in Wiltshire or try to kill people and kill people in Central London. I'm 100 per cent with what the government has to do.

'The way people are being radicalised by this issue, the door is being opened'

It’s pretty weak though.

Well, what are you supposed to do, short of invading Moscow? I mean, that sort of tragedy is... There are a lot of problems out there in the world, whether it's terrorism or climate change or poverty in Africa and the migration problems that causes, where you really want to be working with all these countries. And Syria is a classic example, where the failure of countries to work together lead to hundreds of thousands of people dying.

And the failure of you guys to get the things through parliament. Why did David throw the towel in straight away that night? I've never understood that.

Because we lost the vote in parliament.

Well, as Theresa May shows you can...

And the terrible opportunism of the Labour leader.

But you can you can go back and try again.

I seem to remember Ed Miliband being pretty instrumental.

Yeah, but Theresa May?

Well, no, the House Of Commons had voted not to. It was a one issue thing, which is "Do you launch missiles against..." By the way, I think this is an interesting, I don't want to use the "I" word with you, but as a young Conservative MP, when I first joined parliament as an opposition MP, the Iraq war was the issue. And I voted in 2003 for the Iraq War and ever since then all the cases against intervention have been made.

**Because we learned the lessons. **

Well, the loss of life and the British soldiers, the people in Iraq who lost their lives, and the chaos, but in many ways Syria is an example of what happens when you don't intervene.

**So is Yemen. **

Yeah, and Yemen. And so, for this generation, they're beginning to learn the price of not intervening and that is an interesting shift in our politics.

Just one final thing. You could argue, as you’ve talked about with the crash, that that’s what’s done all this to us. You kind of have a feeling that nationalism, you and I would agree, is the wrong response, but it is a response. Socialism is a response where you could see where the out and out socialist might respond to this. What does liberalism do? How does liberalism reinvent itself in this kind of really crazy polarised world?

Well, I fundamentally don’t think we should give up and I don't want to accept that the other side has got a point, right? Because I think the path that they lead down, whether it’s far left socialism or this nativist nationalism, is a road to ruin for our country and is going to make the people, often those who support it, poorer and worse off. And so I don't want to say, well, they’ve got a point about immigration, although, maybe they've got a point about public ownership of the utilities. Well, I think that is a path to poverty for our nation. And we should be more confident about making our argument, accepting the fact that we're still in the afterwash of this enormous financial crash.

**You don't have a sense of where these new ideas are coming from? Do you say we should just go back to the old ideas? **

No. I think, well, I think you can. You can educate people about the benefits of immigration; you can educate people about the benefits of business. It doesn't mean you're going back. You’re going forward. I'm, for example, a big advocate of regulation of tech companies and technology and that's quite interventionist. If anything, I've become, and I became over my time in politics, more interventionist. So things like the Northern Powerhouse, I could see a Conservative chancellor...

Still got shit transport links to Burnley, though.

Well, yeah. That's the sort of thing the government should be able to do. And so those are ideas where... Public health, I introduced the sugar tax, which was actually one of the things I'm proudest of doing. All the political advisors said I was completely mad to put a tax on Coca-Cola and it's now one of the things I look back on my legacy and think it has really helped people’s lives. These are interventionist, compassionate, progressive centre right things. So I come from the centre right of politics. And there's a whole agenda out there about education, public health, the regulation of technology, that a Conservative prime minister could grab with both hands if they weren't totally obsessed with and consumed by Brexit, which is entirely disruptive.

**Have you seen I, Daniel Blake? **

I haven't, no.

**Why not? You’re a cultural leader in London and the UK. You should. **

Yes. I've had it recounted to me.

I think you should see it.

I think he has a similar view of Iain Duncan Smith.

To you? Did you get that? Well, he’ll slag off Iain Duncan Smith, but not Boris Johnson.

No, some people I know, I said.

Oh, I see. You talk about the tech companies. You're in newspapers now. Facebook, Google, Apple, the gaffer and all that lot. What's your kind of "good thing, bad thing" for the world?

Basically, a good thing, because they've created an amazing way for us all to communicate, receive entertainment, created groups that never would otherwise exist, on the internet, and that's great. That's fantastic. But they are too big. They grew up when rules didn't exist because it's brand new. And rules need to exist to make sure that they face the same sort of editorial constraints that an editor of a newspaper faces. And then that they don't get too big and monopolistic, which is what they are clearly becoming. That their news judgments are properly verified. I mean, all of these things, I think it's all coming. A great agenda for anyone who wants to be a modern progressive politician is let's do the regulation in a good way that supports the market, creates competition, doesn't kill it, but at the same time protects society from it.

So would you – Nick Clegg having gone to Facebook, for example – go there partly as a politician?

I think he had already said lots ofquite interesting things about internet regulation.

So you think it is possible?

It's certainly interesting and I can totally understand why he wanted to take that job.

But can it be done on a nation by nation basis?

Well, no. I mean, fundamentally, again, we are going to be so much weaker outside the EU. I mean, the person who could do this is the competition commissioner in the EU. And I'll be amazed when there's a new commission later this year that's not front and centre of their agenda. And having a European view on technology regulation, Chinese and American, is a great thing. But obviously Britain alone, no one's going to pay much attention. Europe, a market of 500 million people, where a lot of the profits for these companies come from. Yeah, the EU has real clout.

Last question. It just popped into my head and now it's gone again and I thought it would be a great question.

As my teacher would have said, it wouldn’t have been a very good question.

No, it was. It was a really good question it literally just popped into my head. So, last question, which wasn't the last question I was going to ask you. You talked about how you kind of feel less pressured – and I know this – that the family can have these real pressures when you're in one of those high-profile jobs. Do you feel your own life is happier or better than it was?

Well, it's less sort of monomaniac.

**Is that like octo-maniac? **

Well, I mean that when you do those top political jobs, they're just all consuming. And they're pretty damaging actually, to people around you, because everyone it's sort of fair game, your friend or your brother, if they've done something, go for it, because there's a way of getting at you. Yeah. And it's not pleasant and it's pretty brutal. And that's what, by the way, politics in every country at all times in history has been like.

Not worse than before?

I don't think so. I think it's always been a bit like that. I had a fantastic time. I was unbelievably lucky to be at the top of it. I'm proud of what we did. But being out of it, there are a lot of good compensations.

**OK, so were you on the march on Saturday? **

I wasn't, no.

Why not?

I was with my daughter in East Anglia, but my mother was on the march. The Osborne family was represented. My mother has a great record. She went on the anti-Vietnam march in the Sixties. Right, the anti-Iraq war march in the noughties, and the People’s Vote march, twice.

So what did you think of it?

Oh, yeah. Well, that was very impressive, just the sheer scale of it. I think what was also really impressive was it wasn't full of your usual agitators and Socialist Workers posters. This was Middle England on the march and that is a very large number of good citizens of our country who feel very strongly about their future and there's a kind of interesting... The politics of it are interesting. I'm not saying they're trying to achieve a second referendum but if none of the mainstream political parties can find a home for these people they will go in and find a home. I think you are seeing a movement being created.

And do you think it was interesting as well that when Theresa May did that dreadful address from Downing Street that revoke petition which has been around for ages suddenly just went absolutely nuts?

I think five million people now have signed it. I know people say, "Oh, it's not the 17 million who voted in the referendum or the 16 million who voted to remain, but it's still a lot of people and now you feel like the country is being mobilised and you feel the politics of the country are shifting quite dramatically and that the old political parties are creaking at the seams trying to accommodate that.

**That’s why I wrote that piece that was linked to doing this. I don't understand why the parties are scared of the European elections. The party that comes out clear and strong against Brexit, it seems to me, is going to do very, very well. **

Well, frankly there’s a golden opportunity to create a Remain party if we go ahead with the European elections, maybe only for the European elections itself.

What and field candidates everywhere?

You’d field candidates everywhere, just on the Remain ticket and there’ll be a Brexit party, Nigel Farage’s party, and the mainstream parties, because they can't accommodate the aspirations of all those people who are on the march or those people who are signing the petition, they will be sidelined in this election. It's not too late for either of the parties but they've got to move, otherwise you are opening the door to this issue becoming the mobilising force for a new generation.

If that happened, if the Remain party was formed for the European elections, would you back it in the paper? Or might you see that as your route back into politics?

Well, I’m happy editing my paper, but I guess the politician in me sees this large group of people who feel unrepresented, who feel angry that they're not being listened to. And they've been dismissed, they've been derided as saboteurs and traitors and all of that.

And it’s the other side who seem to have all the anger.

And, yeah, well, you can feel that the rebellion is moving now. It's gone from people who wanted to bring down the system to this group who are growing in number. And they will become a very potent political force, and potentially extremely destructive of the other two main political parties, unless one or other of the party leaderships works out how to accommodate it. As it happens, I don’t think Corbyn ever will, nor will Theresa May. She’s not capable of that. So it will be open to the next Conservative leader, who may be coming very shortly, and if they fail, I think the door is wide open to a new political party. And for some time I thought it was unlikely that there'd be a new political party. But I feel with the march, with the petition, with the way people are, in the best sense of the word, being radicalised by this issue, the door has been opened. The Conservative Party can still shut that door, but time is running out.

And do you see the Chuka Umunna, Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen et cetera group as it or not?

Well, I know quite a few of them individually, not all of them. I think many of them have done very courageous things and been unable to remain in their own parties. I don't think that’s the new party. But it's the fact that both Labour and Conservatives are losing people from their moderate wing which is frankly unprecedented. in your day you would pull moderate Tories and get them to try to join Labour and we were trying to do the same, but now both parties are shedding in the centre. And so I think it's the start of something. I think it's significant, particularly significant in the Labour Party, because a lot of those people who've joined this group would have hoped to be in a Labour cabinet in more normal times. And it's the start of something, but I'm not sure that's where it's going to end up. I think the door is open to a new force and the European elections, if they're held, could be the starting point, could be where that new party is born.

So, George, honestly, thanks for all your time. Very long interview. I promise you this is the final, final, final, final question. If you were the editor of a magazine or national newspaper that was reading an interview in a magazine, what would you pick out as the story of what we've discussed?

Well, newspapers are called newspapers because they're about the future of news, not about the past. So I think what I was saying about the people's march and the new political force emerging in Britain is something, if I hadn't said it, we would have put on the front page of our newspaper.

OK. You don't want "Johnson could be PM, says Osborne"? You don't want that?

That's a bit Malcolm Tucker.

You don’t want "May has been the most useless prime minister in history?"

I think that's been written.

I think you could be right. Yeah, you didn't quite get to "Osborne backs new party".

No, I’m pointing to a political force.

"Corbyn could win election, says Osborne"?

Well, that’s obvious because he’s leader of the opposition.

I know, but still news if you say it.

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