Keir Starmer considered George Osborne for US ambassador

Times

a day ago

One was a principle architect of New Labour who was instrumental in the rise of Sir Tony Blair. The other was the strategic political brain behind Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton who consigned Labour to fifteen years in the wilderness.
Now it has emerged that Sir Keir Starmer came close to appointing George Osborne instead of Lord Mandelson in the high-profile and critical role as Britain's ambassador to the US.
In the updated edition of his biography of the prime minister, the journalist Tom Baldwin reveals that Osborne made it to a shortlist of two for the prestigious and diplomatically fraught role as Britain's consigliere to the Trump administration.
The former chancellor is understood to have discussed the role with senior Downing Street figures and was prepared to sacrifice his multimillion-pound salary from the financial advisory firm Robey Warshaw to take it.
Baldwin said that Osborne's name had been added to the process late after months of speculation over who would replace Dame Karen Pierce, the outgoing and highly respected incumbent.
Alongside Mandelson, those publicly in the frame for the job included the former foreign secretary David Miliband and Cathy Ashton, the former EU high representative.
But Trump's victory in November's presidential election threw the recruitment process wide open and some in Downing Street questioned whether it would be strategically smart to appoint someone from the right.
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'Just days before [Mandelson was appointed] the name of George Osborne [was] added to the final shortlist presented to the prime minister by Downing Street advisers,' Baldwin wrote in The New World magazine.
'They are understood to have invested considerable effort in pushing the former Tory chancellor's application, even though that perhaps unnecessarily complicated what Starmer would ultimately regard as a relatively simple decision.'
It is understood that one of those pushing Osborne's candidacy was Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff.
Baldwin also reveals that Starmer nearly failed in his attempt to flatter Trump in their Oval Office meeting by presenting him with a letter from the King inviting him for a state visit.
The letter had been in the hands of an aide, who had refused White House demands for it to be submitted in advance.
'Starmer suddenly realised he would need to present the letter himself but was surrounded by White House staff preparing the president for the media,' Baldwin wrote. 'I'm told that the envelope had to be gently lobbed over their heads to the prime minister who, it turns out, has a reassuringly safe pair of hands.'