GREED ISN’T THE WORD FOR IT

I was browsing the Times website and came across this- MPs on £3,000 a day claim Commons perks

MPs are earning substantial amounts from jobs outside parliament while claiming generous parliamentary expenses, unpublished employment contracts have revealed.

More than 150 MPs have accepted nonparliamentary jobs, with some tripling their Commons salaries. One Conservative backbencher who claims the maximum possible second homes allowance has 10 other jobs.

The Sunday Times has established that: David Willetts, who had claimed £115 in parliamentary expenses for workmen to change 25 lightbulbs, is entitled to claim more than £3,000 a day working for a pensions advice company.

Ian McCartney, the former trade minister, is entitled to a daily rate of £3,125 from Fluor Corporation, an international construction company.

Adam Ingram, the Labour MP and former defence minister, is entitled to £1,500 a day from EDS, the government contractor which won a multi-billion-pound contract from his department when he was in office.

Ingram said he did not claim his full daily rate; McCartney has said he uses his earnings to fund a parliamentary office and donations to charity.

All three members claim second home allowances of more than £20,000 each, in addition to their MP’s salary of £64,766.

Tony Baldry, the Conservative MP for Banbury, has 10 jobs outside parliament. He is head of a London barristers’ chambers, chairman of a company investing in emerging economies, deputy chairman of an energy company and an executive partner in a film company.

Baldry claimed the full housing allowance last year of £23,083.

The answer?

Either they are full time MPs, as they all claim how difficult a job it is and how busy they always are on Parliamentary business, or they stand down as MPs and work in the private sector.

But not both, I for one don’t want a part time MP, although the one I have is about as much use as the expenses system, perhaps if he were full time he might actually do something for his constituents, which could possibly apply to all other MPs, that is of course if there are any left after the firing squads have finished their work.



“The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.” B C Forbes


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