With nannies to pay the poor Tories can’t live on chicken feed
TO those having a go at rich Tory MPs trying to make themselves even richer with second jobs, let me offer some context.
They have every reason to believe they’re worth far more than the £82k a year we hand them due to their noble leader claiming a decade ago that the £250k a year the Daily Telegraph paid him for writing a weekly column was “chicken feed”.
Sure, most chose a career in politics because it offered countless ways to feather their nests, but what if their nests are thinning and need more feathers? A rich person’s roost has many needs as Boris Johnson’s old newspaper recently pointed out in a heartbreaking article about the current shortages of private chefs, nannies, butlers, yacht crews and housekeepers. If you have hankies, prepare to use them now.
“Things are so bad that some people are closing down their country houses completely,” wailed an interior designer. Even worse, the Telegraph reported a mother yelling “my nanny’s run away” in the middle of Waitrose’s Kensington store after her childminder was seduced by a better offer.
Think of what it costs, amid these supply chain issues, for the rich to keep their decanters full and their Polish
nannies bringing up young Chlamydia and Hercules.
You may point out that MPs earn £50k more than the average wage and the majority recently voted to take £20 a week off the poorest people claiming they could cope. But as one Tory put it this week: “There’s no way I could be an MP without my outside interests. I need the money for childcare.”
Maybe now you heartless fiends might understand why Sir Geoffrey Cox had to reinvent himself as an obscenely well-paid version of Princess Margaret, lolling around the Caribbean for most of the year despite being on the public payroll.
Then there’s Owen Paterson and the extra £112k a year he needs to survive, John Redwood and his £230k, Iain Duncan Smith and his £45k a year working for two health firms, David Davis receiving £50k annually for his wisdom and Liam Fox advising a Panama-based company.
All doing these outside jobs to bring, as the international trade secretary put it without irony, a “richness” to Westminster.
I’m sure you’re screaming that if they want outside jobs that enrich the world why not wipe the backsides of dementia patients in care homes? I’m sure you’re asking how Tory MP Natalie Elphicke had the gall to tell Marcus Rashford to work harder at his game instead of “playing politics” while she was picking up £36k a year in a second job.
But you’re missing the bigger picture. Care homes pay the minimum wage, Rashford feeding the poorest kids only earned him an MBE not a seat in the Lords, and these moonlighting Tories are very proud of what they do.
Is it any coincidence that grasping corporate lackeys like Cox, Paterson, Duncan Smith, Redwood, Davis and Fox were leading voices in persuading us to leave the EU, which had plans to bring in an Anti Tax Avoidance Directive enforcing big companies to pay their fair share towards public services?
And how did these well-heeled hypocrites paint themselves to the gullible masses during that vote? As maverick outsiders on a mission to bring down a corrupt, unaccountable, rich elite.
Indeed the frauds were so convincing I can only conclude they all have third jobs. As hypnotists.
If they want outside jobs why not wipe backsides in care homes?