there is an old song "its the rich gets all the pleasure and the poor gets all the blame..."
while there is that saying that money goes to money.
over on the daily telegraph site is this little nugget about oliver letwin, one of the more unctous new tories.
letwin is cameron's new policy chief, which he says is a full time job. when letwin was shadow chancellor he had given up this non-executive role, but now he has it back at nm rothschild. it is reputed to be worth £300,000 a year to him (or close on 10 years worth of my salary). he is not giving up the job because there is no conflict of interest.
letwin says "I think I will be able to manage." he went on to say the city job was "a tiny little part" of his activities.
ok lets step back here a little bit.
rothschild's are paying letwin £300,000 for a job he can manage with only a bit of his time devoted to it, yet there is no conflict of interest?
are they paying him for his charming good looks?
or maybe it's his sparking wit.
perhaps he has promised to get dr. fox to dj for them (that one is for you cliff).
no i don't think so.
you want to know what i think, of course you do. but i suspect several of you are way ahead of me.
they pay him £300,000 a year because he gets them the ear of the tory party, he gets them information from various parlimentaty committees, hell i bet he even pushes some of their ideas.
i am all for politicans working, it keeps them grounded in the concerns of the people they are responsible to. but letwin is living large on the fat of the land, getting cash not because he grafted for it, but because he can ease open a few doors.
what is worse after months of the tories talking about new labout sleaze none of them (including cameron) seem to say: "hold on a minute matey, surely you don't expect people to believe there is no conflict of interest? i mean just on the basic tax issue old fellah we have a conflict......"
old tory, new tory same old wankers.
2 comments:
When I saw the headlines a while ago about MPs wanting a 22% pay rise I was of course jumping up and down in a rage.
But then I stopped and thought about how much of a salary that would be. Although huge compared to a massive part of the population, it is paltry in comparison to others.
Perhaps we should pay MPs more (in line with headteachers possibly) but exclude them from moonlighting anywhere else. I am not convinced, Pat, that the jobs they take keep them in touch with the common person.
you might be right.
i remember there was a tory who was also working as a dentist (in order to keep his hand in ho ho ho) and he was accused of not taking his role as an mp seriously.
i guess it depends on the job they do.
i would be happy to exchange my salary and job to be an mp with their salaries.
(heaven protect the rest of the country if i was ever allowed to make laws....)
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