The stench of sleaze now stinking out the Conservative Party is up there with the MPs’ expenses scandal. The difference is this one was hiding in plain sight.
The Register of Members’ Interests is packed with facts and figures on MPs’ outside earnings and the identities of companies paying them.
But it is such a dry document few of us would choose it for our bedtime reading.
It is only because Prime Minister Boris Johnson bungled an outrageous attempt to save the career of corrupt MP Owen Paterson that the spotlight is now shining on it.
The MPs involved say the public does not care if they pocket a few quid on the side – even though a few quid in their world adds up to £1.7million in consultancies and directorships alone so far this year.
Do you agree? Have your say in the comment section
That £1.7million is petty cash compared to the fortune Geoffrey Cox has raked in from legal fees representing a dodgy Caribbean regime. He can make in an hour what a Brit on average earnings of £29,600 makes in a month.
And if the public does not care, MPs must have another explanation for their inboxes filling up with angry emails from constituents – unless they are too busy with second jobs to read them.
If the public does not care, Labour must be doing a better job than the Tories give them credit for to take a six point lead in the polls.
Homeowners struggling to pay mortgages on an average £271,000 house care very much when the PM gives Michael Gove a £25milllion one for free.
Nor will they be impressed with Tory MP Richard Fuller’s £300,000 from a firm with links to Chinese surveillance. Or Boris dismissing £250,000 from a second job as a newspaper columnist as “chicken feed”.
It is not just that the Tories are out of touch with ordinary people.
They are on a different planet.
An election is too far away for voters to send them into orbit. But Mr Johnson should be brought to earth with a bump.
It is down to decent Conservative politicians to rid us of this PM and the sleaze that seems to constantly surround him.
And we wish them the greatest success in doing so.
Meg’s mess...
Meghan Markle’s claim that her privacy was invaded is undermined when she reveals herself as the one breaching it.
Prince Harry’s wife now “remembers” co-operating with the authors of a book about the couple’s personal lives.
And having admitted doing so, Ms Markle now faces a possible privacy action herself from older sister Samantha.
We accept Ms Markle found it a strain to marry into the world’s most famous family.
But maintaining privacy requires consistency. So Ms Markle cannot put private matters into the public domain when it suits her.
Because having her cake and eating it will just end in more tears.
