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Tories ditch second jobs in attempt to outflank voter fury
Nicholas Cecil, Chief Political Correspondent22.06.09
Tory policy chief Oliver Letwin was today leading a rush of shadow Cabinet ministers giving up lucrative second jobs.
From 1 July, MPs will have to reveal the pay and hours they work on jobs outside Parliament. One Tory insider said the party is braced for a wave of public fury over the issue.
Mr Letwin was expected to announce that he would stand down as a non-executive director of NM Rothschild Corporate Finance. He is understood to be planning to stand down from the banking post, but not before 1 July, so he will have to make public this income and hours.
The Tory insider suggested the row over outside work, on top of MPs' salary of £64,700 a year, could be even more damaging for the Conservatives than the expenses scandal.
Shadow overseas aid secretary Andrew Mitchell is giving up his banking directorships at Lazard, while millionaire shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has ended his work as a commercial adviser to the Bristol Port Company. Several former Labour Cabinet ministers including Patricia Hewitt, Charles Clarke and David Blunkett also have outside posts. Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, universities spokesman David Willetts, and shadow environment minister Gregory Barker are believed to be in a similar position.
The Tories face accusations of conflicts of interests if they clung on to second jobs. Shadow foreign secretary William Hague, estimated to have amassed up to £4million since he stood down as Tory leader after losing the 2001 general election, is to dump his directorships and after-dinner speeches.
Shadow Commons leader Alan Duncan has given up his paid directorship for Arawak Energy Ltd and his post as owner of Harcourt Consultants, which advises on oil and gas matters.
He strongly denied as "absolute five-star total rubbish" that Tory MPs were quitting second jobs to keep details secret.
Shadow housing spokesman Grant Shapps and shadow Treasury minister David Gauke are also understood to be quitting their respective publishing and banking posts.
And, after magazine PR Week reported last week that shadow science minister Adam Afriyie had made a £13million fortune, his office is said to have contacted the editor to correct this figure to up to £100 million.
Reader views (5)
in most cases they are inept at their first job, lord knowswhy any semi intelligent captain of industry would offer any of them a second job and these days having some m.p's name on the company letterhead and as a token of prestige and an enducement to encourage business is counterproductive in the extreme.
- M.O'Brien, london.uk
Georgie of Islington, you really are foolish or deliberately dissembling if you think that the conservatives were doing this voluntarily and to be transparent. They made desperate attempts to resist it, because it raises fundamental questions about the time their* MPs spend on parliamentary duties and what they do for the organisations which employ them.
*(It is overwhelmingly conservative MPs who do such outside work.)
To justify the enormous sums of money earned or paid for the outside activity, they would have to commit or spend several days a week on it. If so, how can they be properly undertaking the parliamentary duties that you and I pay them to do?
Equally, if they are properly fulfilling their parliamentary duties, how can they justify their pay packages to the shareholders or investors in those outside orgainsations? It raises legitimate questions of being overpaid for the outside duties by cronies on the relevant board or of being paid for undue and improper influence in Parliament.
And to Reuben of Morecambe: if they were a general election now, the conservatives would almost certainly win it. Had they been in power, they would definitely not have approved such reforms, since it is their MPs who mainly benefit from outside earnings.
- William, London
To be honest, if they feel they need the extra money I'd much rather they got a second job and earned it rather than helping themselves to extra taxpayers' cash.
But if your local MP isn't up to the job, doesn't reply to your concerns, is apparently "too busy" to deal with every issue that's raised with them, you have every right to know if they feel they've got time to do another job.
- Karen, Barnet
THIS CONFIRMS WHAT JOE PUBLIC ALREADY KNOWS.
MP's USE THEIR JOB IN THE HOUSE OF CONMEN AS A PART-PART-TIME EXERCISE AND THE REAL MONEY IS TO BE GRABBED FROM BANKS, PUBLISHERS AND NATIONAL COMPANIES WHO STICK THE MP's NAME ON THEIR LETTERHEADS.
JOE PUBLIC NEEDS A GENERAL ELECTION NOW.
IS THE UK SUPPOSEDLY A DEMOCRACY?
IF THE UK IS A DEMOCRACY THEN WHY ARE GORMLESS BROWN, JACKBOOT STRAW, BALLS, MEDDLESUM, BLUNKETT AND PRESCOTT ACTING AS THOUGH THEY ARE RUNNING A JACKBOOT AUTOCRACY?
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe UK
Good on them. At least Conservatives are transparent about it. More shame on the Nu Labor bunch...
- Georgie, Islington, London
