Back in November, the News of the World ran a story claiming that David Cameron was trying to ban his front bench from holding down lucrative other jobs by the end of 2008. At the time I thought that this would be a test of the Tories’ seriousness.
Blogging (though not Twitter) friend Iain Dale said at the time “If any of them don’t like it, there are plenty of others who would happily take their places. In the 18 months before an election those who are leading the Tory campaign need to have their sights set on one target – and that’s winning the election.”
According to the story, there are 19 millionaires in David Cameron’s front bench team. The Tory Shadow Cabinet team hold down 23 directorships between them.
This is a big issue for the Conservatives. A Tory friend told me after the last election that Linton Crosby had expressed his irritation at the part-time application effort in the Tory ranks. Irritation is not an uncommon emotion expressed by campaign managers but nevertheless, it must have got on his nerves that half the shadow cabinet were disappearing to the City rather than the TV and radio studios of Westminster.
Anwyay, it appears that Mr Cameron has lost the fight with his colleagues. Today’s Financial Times quietly notifies us that the Tories can keep their outside jobs.
This will not go down well with the grassroots. Indeed, Jonathan Isaby,who doesn’t believe in a ‘blanket ban’, writing at Conservative Home has said:
“…in order to be taken as a serious government-in-waiting, politics has to come first and I was somewhat concerned recently to hear the following story about a member of the shadow cabinet: he had apparently already told David Cameron that he didn’t want a higher profile post than that which he currently holds in advance of the general election, because he didn’t want to give up other interests on account of time commitments or potential conflicts of interest involved in a different post.
“Such an attitude at this juncture is unacceptable.”
What do you think? Should the Tory front bench give up their second jobs?
UPDATE: Wow. Read the comments at Conservative Home. And Ben Brogan of the Daily Mail makes the point more strongly, whilst Iain is back-pedalling on his previous comments.
8 comments ↓
No they should keep their second jobs. In the current economic climate they would be unwise to give them up, particularly as they aren’t getting into government any time soon.
All that annoys me is that the taxpayer will probably end up paying their NED salaries by bailing out the firms as well as their political salaries.
I’d prefer the Shadow Cabinet to be judged on competence rather than outside earnings. Let the electorate decide who should run the country – if they don’t like someone having a second job, fair enough.
That said, I think a cap on the number of hours that are put aside for other jobs might work instead of capping the amount earned, but it’s still a difficult situation.
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I thinkall MP’s, front and backbenchers, should be prevented by legislation from having a second paid source of employment. We pay a them a full time wage and we should demand a full time job from them in return. A quarter of a million pounds a year in pay and expenses (as the basic) should be enough for anyone.
And we should also demand that they turn up at the place of work more than the 8 months of the year currently required.
“Should the Tory front bench give up their second jobs?”
What, you mean step down from parliament? The implications would be stark. We’d have no opposition.
So ‘yes’, then, basically…
“I’d prefer the Shadow Cabinet to be judged on competence rather than outside earnings. Let the electorate decide who should run the country – if they don’t like someone having a second job, fair enough.”
Fair play. Let’s make it an issue then!
It’s one thing to argue that MPs should have outside experience to bring to politics, or to have one or two senior MPs with outside interests – but it’s quite another for the Tory shadow cabinet to have 23 outside, remunerated directorships between them.
Although I suspect this isn’t the highest total ever, the idea that we might be run by a new generation of “Two-job Tories” might not chime well in neighbourhoods where people are losing their only job, d’ya think?
I also don’t like the fact that some of them are clearly hedging their bets, ‘I’ll go full time if we get to power’, surely you stand for public office or you don’t…
I think they should volunteer to work their other jobs for free, if they’re basing it on outside experience.
John Edwards, I agree that MPs shouldn’t hold other outside jobs, but most of their ‘pay and expenses’ is, truly, expenses. About £90,000 is their staff allowance, for example (which generally doesn’t go to family members, although some do still employ spouses as secretaries and the like), and I think a similar amount is the communications allowance which goes on paper and postage and stuff. It’s not, mostly, the sort of vague expenses which can be spent on day-to-day living.
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