Recent comments by the Father of the House regarding MPs' salaries were quite rightly scorned. Out of touch Tory Peter Bottomley said he couldn't understand how younger MPs managed to survive on their salaries. Just to be clear - all MPs receive a basic £82,000 plus perks and expenses, more than double the £31,000 average salary in the UK. They also get free housing near their place of work, in addition to their existing home. Must be really tough for them, eh?
Now imagine you're paid that handsome sum. If you've got a conscience you'd make sure you did your level best to make sure you earned it, and yet so many of our MPs manage to somehow moonlight in plain sight. There's Dehenna Davidson, the young Tory MP for Bishop Auckland - on Sunday mornings she can be found on GB News hosting The Political Correction alongside Nigel Farage. There's Labour's David Lammy who, despite also being a member of Starmer's Shadow Cabinet, has managed to write two books and host a weekly phone-in show on LBC Radio. And worst of all is Dan 'Two Jobs' Jarvis - who despite being elected as the Mayor of South Yorkshire in 2018 with a salary of £79,000 - sought successful re-election in the general election as MP for Barnsley Central. That's a combined salary of more than £160,000, plus expenses!
Among the more quirky second jobs that our 'struggling' MPs engage in is that of Cardiff West's Kevin Brennan. The Labour MP has found time to embark on a music career and will shortly release his debut album...
It's no great surprise that both Brennan and Lammy have also been implicated in expense scandals. Despite being a London MP, Lammy claimed expenses for a second home and in 2011 he was Britain's most expensive MP, claiming just shy of £174,000 in expenses alone. Brennan used his second home allowances to claim for a £450 widescreen TV, but it was actually delivered to his Cardiff home. When confronted about this, the MP flat out lied.
These people aren't broke, they aren't struggling. They're milking the system and that means they're milking you, the taxpayer. With comfy majorities they're neglecting their primary duties in search of yet more wealth. They are nothing short of parasites.