LONDON: Carrying a bundle of newspapers, former British finance minister George Osborne turned up on Tuesday to start work as a journalist, following last month's shock announcement that he would take the reins of London's main daily paper. The new Evening Standard editor, who lost his job as finance minister last year after helping to lead the doomed campaign to stay in the European Union, will step down as a member of parliament in the June 8 general election. Veteran journalists have mocked his lack of editorial experience and potential conflicts of interest. He already has a part-time job with a salary of 650,000 pounds ($836,810) a year for working 48 days at asset manager BlackRock, and earned hundreds of thousands of pounds giving speeches. Once regarded as a future leader of Britain's ruling Conservative Party, Osborne has opposed some of Prime Minister Theresa May's policies and has said he wants the Evening Standard to be a 'fearless' newspaper. While at the University of Oxford, Osborne dabbled in student journalism and was proud enough of his efforts to display the two issues of the magazine he edited in his Downing Street flat while chancellor. ($1 = 0.7768 pounds)