MPs shouldn’t take on paid consultancy

WHICHEVER party is in government, most if not all long standing MPs are given a “gong” of some sort and many of those which go to the Lords don’t deserve them.

The money these peers get for just turning up is disgraceful and should be cut drastically. Labour are as much at fault as the Conservatives.

When Tony Blair was Prime Minister, he filled the House of Lords with Labour peers. Then Cameron retaliated and created more peers, so between them they wrecked the system.

John Prescott, who openly said he doesn’t approve of these “honours”, accepted a peerage because he said his wife wanted to be a “Lady”. This happened after it came to light that he had an affair during office hours with his secretary, she gets the sack and he becomes a Lord!

When Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, he said he would get rid of a lot of the government Quangos, but he never did. It is a well-known fact that no government likes changes.

Again, when David Cameron left office he rewarded George Osborne with a high honour, which he certainly didn’t deserve with all the drastic cuts he made and left this country in a vulnerable state.

MPs shouldn’t be allowed to take on this highly paid consultancy work, especially as they do very well with their salaries, allowances, pensions and other perks they can claim for. Once they stop being MPs, there should be, eg, two years before they can take on any consultancy.

Governments and their senior civil servants are not expert business people, or when it comes to public relations. It is certainly time their disciplinary rules concerning all

MPs were changed and brought up to date.

Why wasn’t Owen Paterson, like anyone else, allowed to defend himself? We all know John Major doesn’t like Boris Johnson, but he himself was not perfect as Prime Minister – it came out that he had had an affair with Edwina Curry, possibly during office hours too.

As for the over-the-top “rants” that Keir Starmer has come out with in the last few days against Boris Johnson and the government, he conveniently forgets what Labour were like when in Government and this is typical of a party in opposition. Of all people, as a barrister he should know people’s rights of being allowed to defend themselves.

Once again, the BBC have shown they are pro Labour, as on the Andrew Marr show on November 7, when Keir Starmer was given not just prime time, but also extra time at the end of the programme. We never heard on the news over the past week about the unfairness of Owen Paterson not being allowed to defend himself. I am not saying he is not guilty, but by law he should have had this right.

Angela Rainer’s disgraceful outbursts about Boris Johnson are unacceptable for a public figure like her, and like other insults to our Prime Minister by senior Labour MPs, they seem to be ignored by the press and media. But when it is in reverse there is a huge outcry.

Helen Capel North Somerset