UK Edition
Cameron acting like prime minister on world stage, says Osborne
Former chancellor says Foreign Secretary is ‘getting the kind of meetings that no normal British foreign secretary would get’
Lord Cameron is “acting like the British prime minister” on the world stage, George Osborne has said.
Speaking on his Political Currency podcast, Mr Osborne said the ex-prime minister had “upgraded Britain’s foreign policy clout” since becoming Foreign Secretary in November.
The former chancellor said Lord Cameron was “getting the kind of meetings that no normal British foreign secretary would get”, citing his recent visit to Mar-a-Lago to meet Donald Trump, the former US president.
Mr Osborne said: “On the world stage, Cameron is acting like the British prime minister, which he was, and he’s getting the kind of meetings that no normal British foreign secretary would get.
“There’s no way that James Cleverly, or Liz Truss before him when she was foreign secretary, would have had dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.”
The Foreign Secretary made the trip to the Florida residence of Mr Trump, who is hoping to return to the White House, to discuss the war in Ukraine, Nato, and the Middle East earlier this week.
Mr Osborne, who was Lord Cameron’s chancellor, added: “It’s not just that he’s the former prime minister, and so has more presence and clout. It’s that he’s got real things to say, and he’s using the Foreign Office job to push particular things that he cares about.
“So on Ukraine, he’s delivering quite a hard message to Republicans. His reason for going to see Trump was: ‘You’ve got to support Ukraine.’”
Since Lord Cameron’s political comeback, questions have been raised as to whether Rishi Sunak risks being upstaged by the former prime minister after bringing him back into front line politics.
Mr Osborne’s intervention comes after reports that he was involved in a row with Number 10 over its attempt to influence the appointment of a new director for the British Museum.
Sources close to the process have claimed trustees on the selection panel were instructed by Downing Street to supply the Prime Minister with two names, from which he or his advisers would choose the new director.
Mr Osborne is understood to have rejected Downing Street’s demand, saying it went against customary practice and threatened the independence of the British Museum.