Waiting for the tables to turn — George Osborne

It’s hard not to conclude that his re-emergence on the scene as a muted challenge to Mrs May, or at the very least the kind of distraction that Mr Cameron said he was leaving politics to avoid.

But May recently expressed her support for northern devolution in an article for the Yorkshire Post, and Andrew Percy, the new Northern Powerhouse minister, pledged the government’s continued backing for the initiative.

Mr Osborne stressed he was not against new grammar schools opening in areas which wanted them.

And asked if he was not tempted to follow his chum David Cameron to the exit door and start writing his memoirs, Mr Osborne replied: “I don’t want to write my memoirs because I don’t know how the story ends, and I want to hang around and find out”.

The privately-funded partnership will commission specialist research and work collaboratively with other organisations, including chambers of commerce and the new Business North body, to produce research and insight from a pan-Northern perspective.

He gave a lukewarm endorsement of May’s premiership, stressing that he had voted for her to lead his party, but saying only that she had been “the best person for the job of the candidates who put themselves forward”.

He said: “I will want to draw attention to the and causes I care about”.

“That’s the objective of being a Member of Parliament and one of the reasons for remaining in the House of Commons. Because I want to fight for the things that I care about”.

“We need to support economic development across the whole of the country”. But, he said, education secretary Justine Greening and May were also focused on improving education in other ways than through grammars. “After six years in the job?”

“I’m all for elements of selection. But I think the real focus of education reform remains the academy programme transforming the comprehensive schools that most people in this country send their children to”.

A mere two months ago George Osborne was the second most powerful member of the government. “It looks to me pretty much like the same deal”.

He dismissed the Government’s “special share” in critical infrastructure amendment as window dressing saying he had looked at the issue and considered that the United Kingdom already had the powers and no extra caveats were needed.

Mr Osborne dismissed suggestions no meeting with the Prime Minister meant she was not committed to his agenda.

Britain’s former Chancellor George Osborne has said he won’t stay quiet on the backbenches as he takes on a new role lobbying for one of his administration’s pet projects.

Mr Osborne admitted the misjudged the mood of the country during the European Union referendum campaign where he angered many by his doom and gloom predictions. “I sweated blood to get an [elected] mayor for Birmingham. but in the north of England there is a particular opportunity”.

George Osborne has admitted he “did not get it right” on Brexit and admitted the Government failed to address the “economic insecurity” and “loss of identity” among British voters which contributed to the Leave vote. “The forecasts were made in good faith”. It’s going to be a long drawn-out process. And I want to be there in ultimately, still the place where these decisions are made, the House of Commons, and be part of that decision-making process.

Mr Osborne said it was “genuinely not true” he had a bitter rivalry with Mrs May – as a former Lib Dem cabinet colleague had claimed – and said he had worked with her for 20 years.