Lagarde’s appointment is a win for Osborne

The appointment of Christine Lagarde as head of the IMF is a diplomatic victory for George Osborne. The Chancellor was one of her earliest supporters, was the first to nominate her and hit the phones hard on her behalf. She will be a useful ally for Osborne in this position especially given how choppy the global economic waters remain.

But the UK government also used the IMF nomination process to do some diplomatic horse-trading. The government made it clear that UK support for Lagarde was contingent on Paris agreeing that Britain should have to play no part in the coming bailout of Greece.

There will be those who argue that it is not ideal to have the head of the IMF come from a euro-zone country. But it was unlikely that any non-European candidate would have been able to secure enough support to win.