Yesterday I wrote about how the women have taken over the British political landscape. Today it is all about one of the scoundrels that has been ousted by the the people’s coup – George Osborne. Over the past few days it has become known that since he was turfed out of office he has earnt over £600k in the last 6 months from speaking engagements – making him the highest earning MP. On top of that he has also taken a part time senior position at some City institution which is going to also pay handsomely. It has been suggested that he has earnt more since he returned to the back benches than his whole period as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Now I have nothing against people earning money and if anyone has the opportunity to earn that amount of money most people would take it. What I do object to is the fact that he is still entitled to all of his pay and entitlements as an MP which pale into insignificance to his earnings potential. Perhaps there should be some form of sliding scale introduced whereby MPs are entitled to earn money beyond their role but over a certain figure they start to loose the expenses. I would suggest that the figure should be set at a generous figure such as £250k which would mean that a back bench MP could earn nearly £400k in total before losing their allowances. It will never happen because MPs would have to vote to introducing such a scheme and turkeys voting for Christmas comes to mind. Of course you could suggest that it is morally wrong but morality and politics are very odd bed fellows. Clearly not everyone is in it together.
One final thought. Like her or loathe her I don’t think that Theresa May would do something like this – only time will tell if I am being politically naive.
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