9 OF TOP 10 EARNERS AT WESTMINSTER ARE TORIES
Struggling to make ends meet? Then this list of 2016’s top 10 highest-earning MPs – nearly all Tories – will make your blood boil
FORMER Chancellor George Osborne tops the list of 14 fatcat MPs who earn more than the Prime Minister.
Osborne is one of eight Tories and a single Lib Dem whose massive second incomes are higher than Theresa May’s entire £150,402-a-year salary.
A further five Tories also earned more than May when their £75,000-a-year MPs’ salary is taken into account.
Not a single Labour MP made the list of top earners, with only a handful holding second jobs.
Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Hull, said: “Families who have struggled with wage freezes, welfare cuts and rising prices throughout 2016 will be sickened to see the huge sums these part-time MPs have been raking in through their second jobs.
“The Tories keep saying we are all in it together when they’re in Parliament but the truth is that many of them are quietly cashing in on the side.”
Osborne’s massive £627,891 earnings from public speaking since being sacked from the Government in July put him top of the fatcat list, just ahead of another former Tory Chancellor, Ken Clarke, who trousered £599,160.
Clarke also earned large sums from public speaking and this year landed a six-figure advance for his memoirs.
Backbencher Geoffrey Cox was in third on £577,868 after working hundreds of hours as a part-time barrister, while oil executive and Stratford MP Nadhim Zahawi was in fourth.
Zahawi has been pocketing a cash bonus of £26,000 every two months this year from Gulf Keystone Petroleum, on top of a £240,000-a-year salary.
Boris Johnson was in fifth due to book royalties and his lucrative £250,000-a-year newspaper column, which he wrote for the first six months of the year before giving it up on becoming Foreign Secretary.
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Turner added: “People like Osborne, Clarke and Johnson seem to see politics as another step on the get-rich-quick ladder, rather than a way to improve people’s lives.”
Reality TV star Nadine Dorries, the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, was in sixth place after pocketing £333,467,job Sir as Nicholasa best-sellinglargely Soamesfrom author.her landedsecond £245,423 from a series of part-time executive and advisory roles to big business. Nick Clegg is the only non-Tory on the list, after raking in almost £200,000 from speeches about his days as deputy prime minister in the coalition government. The highest earning Labour MP was backbencher Jess Phillips, who received a £50,000 advance for a book she is writing. There is no suggestion any of the therethe amountMPs are have currentlya backbencherbrokenno limits rules, can on as earn from second jobs. Former Labour leader Ed Miliband had pledged a clampdown on MPs’ second jobs if he had won last year’s general election. Last night Katie Ghose, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said it was time the rules were reviewed. She said: “Some MPs need to practise their profession in order to keep their licences – for exampledoctors absolutelyshouldfrom all beor walksif lawyers welcomeright.theyof life. – are Parliamentandto nurses, peoplethat is hours “But per puttingyear into hundredsanother job of could undermine their ability to properly serve the public, if the situation is totally unchecked.” Osborne said last month he was doing nothing wrong. He added: “As an MP I declare all my income, so people can see it. It’s similar to what previous chancellors, Labour and Conservative, have done.”
Putting hundreds of hours into other jobs could affect their ability to serve the public
KATIE GHOSE