Transparency International last week vented its outrage at the former Chancellor of the Exchequer's appointment as editor of a prominent London newspaper.

A global anti-corruption watchdog has slammed the appointment of George Osborne as editor of London newspaper the Evening Standard, claiming it “smacks of greed and the accumulation of power”.

Last week, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, aka finance minister, was named head of the Evening Standard. The free newspaper has a daily readership exceeding one million. 

Osborne's appointment has sparked nationwide controversy, with various news outlets, journalists and members of the public criticising it as a conflict of interest because of his links to government.

Transparency International, a non-profit body that seeks to combat corruption, last week condemned his appointment and lashed out at the board which approved it. 

“The proposition is that a sitting MP, from the governing party, is appointed editor of a major British newspaper – in addition to his new position as a highly-paid City advisor,” said Robert Barrington, Transparency International's UK executive director. 

“It smacks of greed and the accumulation of power, undermining the government's intention to create a country that works for everyone.”

The advisory role Barrington refers to is Osborne's position at BlackRock, the world's largest listed asset manager, for which he is paid £650,000 ($805,344) annually to work four days a month. 

Barrington continued: “Mr Osborne is clearly being badly advised and we can only hope that others help him to understand the damage he is doing to the reputation of parliament and democracy at a critical time in the country's history. 

“The conflict of interest is so clear it is astonishing that it should have been proposed. A key role of the media is to hold politicians to account; to have a recent minister or an MP running the editorial line of a newspaper certainly calls into question whether this principle can be upheld.”

Barrington and the body he represents also attacked a board that approved Osborne's appointment. 

“It is inconceivable that ACOBA, the advisory body for political business appointments, could approve this move, and therefore extraordinary that it should have been proposed,” he continued. “If ACOBA approve this they will be signing their own death-warrant, confirming they are not fit for purpose and unable to guard against conflicts of interest and consequences of the revolving door – two of the most prevalent corruption risks in UK politics.”

(Editor's comment: The move by a politician to become an editor of a prominent UK publication is not unprecedented, but still relatively rare. In the past, the move has been in the other direction, with journalists such as Nigel Lawson (who had held posts at the Spectator and Financial Times, among others) and Michael Gove (The Times of London), moving into ministerial careers. Politicians have gone on to hold roles in The City, such as when former Chancellor Gordon Brown joined the advisory board of fund giant PIMCO a few years ago. In the US, it has been a common pattern for former Treasury officials and policymakers to work in Wall Street, and vice-versa. This movement to and from the policy/commercial world is not necessarily a problem depending on how it is managed. This case certainly raises questions about whether Osborne faces serious conflicts of interest. More broadly, it has been speculated that Osborne, who was a prominent campaigner for the UK to remain in the EU during last June's referendum, will be seen as using his Evening Standard platform to harry the current government from which he was ejected last year. He was also, it has to be said (alongside current Prime Minister Theresa May) a member of a government that commissioned the controversial Leveson Report that had called for controls on the UK press, arguably ending more than 300 years of freedom from state oversight by the press. This latter point has not caused as much controversy as other matters around Osborne's ascendancy to the editorship of the Evening Standard, but arguably, it should do so.)