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Senior Tories earn thousands from banks they criticise
Sri Carmichael22 Jan 2009
THE TORY shadow cabinet has been raking in thousands of pounds in cash and perks from failing banks.
The latest register of MPs' interests reveals that four of the party's big beasts were paid large sums in the past year by institutions that have lost taxpayers billions of pounds.
William Hague, Ken Clarke, Oliver Letwin and Francis Maude are all prominent members of the shadow cabinet, which has approved criticism of "irresponsible" bankers. Shadow chancellor George Osborne has led the attack.
David Cameron's effective deputy leader, shadow foreign secretary William Hague, received up to £15,000 for an after-dinner speech to executives from Barclays Capital Markets in May.
Mr Maude is paid an untold sum to sit on Barclays' Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee. The bank's shares have plummeted recently, with investors fearing the extent of its bad debt will force it to ask for government money. So far it has resisted a state bailout.
Mr Clarke, the newly appointed shadow business secretary, pocketed as much as £25,000 in the past three months for talking to beleaguered financial groups, including UBS, BGC International, Cofunds and Goldman Sachs. UBS, which went cap in hand to the Swiss government recently and plans to cut 5,500 staff, gave Mr Clarke up to £10,000 for a speech in October.
The credit crunch saw Goldman Sachs give up its investment banking status after 75 years, but it still paid the former Chancellor up to £5,000 for putting in an appearance at its offices.
Mr Letwin, the Tories' strategy supremo, receives unspecified payments for his role as a non-executive director of N.M. Rothschild Corporate Finance, which is making money advising Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the latest bank bailout.
A group of 11 MPs, nine of them Tories, also took part in an all-expenses-paid trip to China in September, which was part-funded by Barclays Capital. The week-long trip to Beijing for the UK-China Leadership of the Future Forum was also sponsored by Rolls-Royce and the Chinese Communist Party.
Former foreign minister and now Conservative backbencher Sir Malcolm Rifkind was paid up to £5,000 for a speech to debt-ridden ABN-Amro in May.
Royal Bank of Scotland took over the Dutch bank and its dire loan book in 2007, a move blamed for RBS's recent part-nationalisation.
Labour MP Ian Gibson said: "It does not look good for Tory MPs to be attacking banks while quietly raking it in from those institutions. The [Tory] frontbench should reveal their interests in Britain's banks."
Reader views (14)
John, Romford - well pointed out - odd that no one seems to have blamed 'nu-labour' or 'Crash Gordon' for the Tories being the same elitist, nose in the trough, mates of the fat cats, don't care about society people they always have been.
Still, there's none so blind....
- Liberal And Proud, London, UK, 23/01/2009 10:51
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None of your Tory Activist commentators,the "Crash Gordon Brigade", seem to want to comment on this one!!
- John, Romford England, 23/01/2009 06:46
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It was ever thus, greedy Tory scum with their snouts in the trough. It won't be long before they will be back wallowing in it.
- Kerry, Purley, 22/01/2009 17:42
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You must remember that as Oliver Letwin once said there is no way anyody can live on an M.P.'s salary of sixty thousand a year plus expenses so they all need additional jobs to make ends meet.
- A Stock, Ilford England, 22/01/2009 17:42
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We can all see that these Tories are persuading the banks to ignore, nay oppose the Government's demands that banks cut interest rates for mortgage customers to appease the hard times many of us are suffering
- Keith Price, Luton, England, 22/01/2009 16:34
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It really shows you how thick bankers are - paying out that kind of money to listen to those people talk to them at dinner. However, as there is no meat to anything they say, nobody is going to get indigestion.
- John Problem, Hackney Wick, London, UK, 22/01/2009 16:33
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And this is even before they get into power. They are just waiting to really get their snouts in the trough. Come this summer, Oleg Deripaska's yacht will be so overcrowded with them it will be sinking....
- Robert C, London UK, 22/01/2009 15:18
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E Sullivan, london - Why slate the tories?
What are we supposed to do when we read an article like this? Praise the tories? Whilst Cameron is bawling out the banks and their managers for not lending, all the time his shadow cabinet had their snouts burried in the banks trough. When the country is on its knees the last thing we want is the money that the banks should be lending ordainary people and small businesses wasted on the self serving ever indulgent tory party and their friends. Hypocrites, one and all.
- James Hennessy, london england, 22/01/2009 15:06
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Being an MP should be a full time job. MP's should not have any jobs or receive remuneration from other parties. There is a conflict of interest and they cannot be trusted to represent the constituency who voted them in. No wonder the country is in the mess it is.
- Maggie, London, 22/01/2009 14:36
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Tom and Sylvia, did I say the Tories were sqeaky clean. No I did not. I agree that they too have made mistakes, been guilty of wrong doing, but it seems that when they do anything it is made much more of than when labour commit the same actions. Don't forget Mr Brown has tried to keep the MP's spending under wraps, WHY?
Yes I am reading the same paper as you Tom, but you are obviously not reading my comments in the context they were meant i.e. they are both as bad as each other, but one gets slated more.
- E Sullivan, London, 22/01/2009 14:08
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Are there any MP's with integrity ? Bring back Oliver Cromwell.
- Phil George, Castro Marim Portugal, 22/01/2009 13:20
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Re: E. Sullivan. Why slate the Tories? Let's see. Derek Conway and everything that followed from that. Second homes to die for, filled with freebies gallore. Lot's of family members on the payrole for doing nothing. And the fact that most of the people to blame for this are multi millionaires. How's that for starters? Labour and Lib-Dems are no better. They are all at it. Why would you pay high salaries, huge expenses, and gold plated pensions to people whose job it is to lie? I'm sure the British public will be reminded of all of this and more at the Euro and General election.
- Sylvia, Epping. Essex, 22/01/2009 12:46
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"Why slate the Tories for everything"
You are reading the same newspaper as me, are you? This is a welcome bit of balance, frankly. If anyone thinks the Tories don't have skeletons in their closet from their adherence to laissez-faire economics and worship of financial services wizards, I've got a bridge to sell you. Free bank thrown in. My problem is not that Brown and co. are clearly untrustworthy, but so are their opponents, for the same reasons.
- Tom, London, UK, 22/01/2009 12:43
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Why slate the Tories for everything, yet from day one the labour party have been ruining this country. False promises, sleaze bringing the country to its knees, but very little is said.
- E Sullivan, London, 22/01/2009 10:46
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