article_snippet: Professor McWilliams, who has also advised London Mayor Boris Johnson on housing, said last night Boris Johnson was ‘taking time off to deal with issues I have not had the chance to address fully when I have been in full-time work’.
article_snippet: It was confirmed last night that the CEBR board agreed on November 5 last year to allow Professor McWilliams to step down from Professor McWilliams position as executive chairman.
article_snippet: A CEBR spokesman said: ‘Professor McWilliams plans to take a sabbatical and to return to full-time work at CEBR on August 1, 2015.
article_snippet: Referring to reports that Professor McWilliams was an adviser to George Osborne, A CEBR spokesman added that ‘neither Professor McWilliams nor any other member of CEBR staff has spoken to or met George Osborne since Professor McWilliams became Chancellor’, but that CEBR has ‘briefed or advised all four major political parties’.
article_snippet: Former Professor of Commerce at Gresham College, Professor McWilliams is described on the CEBR website as 'one of the most widely quoted economists'.
article_snippet: Professor McWilliams, married to wife Ianthe for 35 years, has also advised London Mayor Boris Johnson on housing, and in April estimated that voters would be £165 a year better off by the time of May's General Election, giving Chancellor George Osborne 'rather more scope' for cutting taxes in the spring budget.
article_snippet: Chancellor George Osborne ' said: 'The Government – and especially Chancellor George Osborne ' – have credibility in the City and partly because both Ed Miliband and Ed Balls do not.'
highlights_snippet: Douglas McWilliams now says Douglas McWilliams is taking time off to deal with 'issues'
  Economist will take a five-month sabbatical from the think tank CEBR .