If careering towards a no-deal Brexit or rolling out the red carpet to President Trump wasn’t embarrassing enough for the UK, our former Chancellor, George Osborne, has thrown his hat into the ring to succeed Christine Lagarde as the next Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Despite what his supporters may say, Britain’s unrepentant architect of austerity is the wrong person to lead an international institution that is badly in need of reform.
Founded in 1944 to prevent another Great Depression, the IMF is out of step with our twenty-first century world. 75 years on, we face unprecedented global inequality, relentless technological upheaval, creeping authoritarian politics, unaccountable multinationals and a climate emergency fueled by our greedy, extractive market system.
