George Osborne is the archetypal part-time MP

For once, Jeremy Corbyn was spot-on. Learning of the news that George Osborne is to be made editor of the Evening Standard he didn’t bleat about Tory domination of the press, but tweeted ‘It’s taking multi-tasking to an extreme level – what a joke’. What is wrong about Osborne’s new job is not that it confirms that the Evening Standard is a Conservative-supporting newspaper. That is there for all to see, but why does it matter when there is absolutely nothing to stop a Labour-supporting entrepreneur, or anyone else, setting up a rival London newspaper?

What ought to concern all taxpayers is that we are already paying the former chancellor to do what is supposed to be a full-time job: being an MP. That’s what MPs told us it was, at any rate, before the last election when they were accepting a recommendation that their pay be jacked up 10 per cent.