George Osborne hits out at Theresa May again with attack on ’badly thought through’ social care policy

GEORGE Osborne has hit out at Theresa May once again with an attack on her 'badly thought through' social care policy.

And he claimed she has joined Jeremy Corbyn in offering a “retreat from international liberalism and globalisation”.

The Former Chancellor said it marks a sharp shift in direction from David Cameron's administration, and contrasted with the "socially liberal, pro-business and pro-free market" values he wants to promote in his new role as editor of the Evening Standard.

But he was forced to deny he was taking revenge on the woman who kicked him out of the Cabinet last year after a string of negative front pages about Mrs May’s election campaign in recent days.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Political Thinking, he stood by criticisms of the PM’s policies on social care and immigration, which have been the subject of stinging headlines and editorials in his newspaper.

Mr Osborne said he would not "pull punches" in his coverage of the government, and declined to say whether London's evening paper would endorse the Conservatives for the June 8 general election.

The former Conservative MP said: "Both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are offering, in very different ways, a retreat from international liberalism and globalisation.

"That is quite a development in British politics, and I think there are quite a lot of people who are uncertain whether that is the right development and I want to make sure that the Evening Standard is asking on their behalf questions about that."

But asked if the Standard's attacks on Mrs May's policies were a matter of "revenge", he replied: "No.”

He added: “What the paper is doing is standing up for a set of values that the paper has long espoused and by a happy coincidence are also the values I applied as chancellor."

And Mr Osborne stood by the paper's description of the Conservative manifesto's social care proposals as "badly thought through".

He said: "They were clearly badly thought through, because the Prime Minister herself decided to rethink them."

He also explained its denunciation of Mrs May's pledge to cut net migration below 100,000 as "politically rash and economically illiterate".

The ex-minister identified it, alongside the failure to reconstruct Libya, as shortcomings in the record of the Cameron administration he was at the heart of for six years

Asked by presenter Nick Robinson if he was missing politics after stepping down from the Commons this month, Mr Osborne said: "Actually, I'm not missing it at all.

“I'm really enjoying covering the campaign as an editor. It's a very different perspective and it's good fun."