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George Osborne has been appointed the next chairman of the board of the British Museum, and the former Conservative chancellor has been placed in one of the most important roles in UK culture.
Osborne will host in October Sir Richard Lambert, editor of the Financial Times and former director of the CBI business portal, who heads a 25-member board of directors that includes important cultural figures such as Mary Beard and Grayson Perry.
Osborne said: “I have loved the British Museum all my life. In my opinion, it is simply the largest museum in the world. It is a place where cultures come together and tell the story of our ordinary humanity.”
Minouche Shafi, the former vice-governor of the Bank of England, chaired a seven-person nomination committee and said the museum “led an independent, open and in-depth process of finding a global leader who shows an interest in culture and history”. ”
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, a temporary deputy to former Prime Minister David Cameron, welcomes Osborne’s appointment as colleagues.
“He has a great deal of financial specialization,” said an ally of Dowden’s. “It’s important that people like this run large art institutions to help them heal from the pandemic.”
The British Museum plans to carry out major overhauls of its buildings and displays according to a 10-year master plan, and has yet to explain the costs, but will have to make major investments.
A friend of Osborne’s said the former chancellor was “not about to become a warrior of culture,” overseeing the removal of colonial-bonded states. The friend added: “George will be a very safe haven for the centrist establishment.”
However, the appointment of Osborne hardly reflects Dowden’s recent desire to have a more diverse people who run cultural organizations in the UK.
When he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph recently, Dowden said it was important that “not only the people of the metropolitan bubble be governed.”
Osborne studied in Tory politics in west London and later at St Paul’s University before embarking on a career in Tory politics. Eventually, he became Chancellor of Cameron from 2010-2016.
Osborne has slashed its job portfolio over the past year, becoming editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard newspaper and resigning as part-time manager of the U.S. fund manager BlackRock. He has also added a full-time role as a partner in the UK boutique financial advisory firm Robey Warshaw, and has advised on some of the UK’s largest deals since its launch in 2013.
Taking on the role at the UK’s most popular museum, Osborne will have tough issues to ask for competing objects of conversation, such as Benin Bronze and Parthenon Marbles, to hold climate protests over his long-standing involvement with the BP oil group. . His appointment comes amid a push by the Conservative government to influence the upper echelons of British cultural institutions.
The pandemic has worsened funding for cultural institutions, closures and restrictions on social exclusion have reduced visitor incomes, and reduced government support for public financial pressures.
The British Museum, founded in 1729, was the most popular attraction for visitors to the UK in 2019, with 6.2 million visits, according to the British tourism authority VisitBritain.
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