Hypocrisy exposed

Labour’s humbug over second jobs among MPS has been roundly exposed by the disclosure that the party leader, Sir Keir Starmer QC, carried on working as a lawyer when he entered Parliament in 2015. He registered earnings of £115,000 for providing legal advice until he joined the shadow Cabinet and was expected to relinquish outside work.

His deputy Angela Rayner sought yesterday to claim that his other paid employment was somehow totally different to that of Sir Geoffrey Cox QC who was retained by the British Virgin Islands in a case against the British Government.

Sir Keir’s work included the payment of nearly £10,000 for the provision of legal advice to the government of Gibraltar. How does this differ from what Sir Geoffrey did that has caused such sanctimonious indignation on the Labour benches? Other Labour politicians, including Lord Falconer, the shadow attorney-general, also maintain outside paid legal interests.

Ms Rayner blustered an attempted explanation on the BBC’S Andrew Marr Show yesterday but it was utterly unconvincing. Essentially, her case was a self-serving assertion that Labour politicians are really nice people who want to change the rules (but will continue to have outside interests for as long as they are allowed) while Tories are sleazy and venal.

Labour’s hypocrisy is breathtaking and yet it is the Government which is suffering in the opinion polls after the botched effort to stop Owen Paterson, the former Cabinet minister, being suspended for breaking long-standing rules against paid advocacy. That is proving to be a costly mistake.