They never learn, do they? Every generation of Tory MPs gets caught out by greed.
In the Naughty Nineties, it was cash in brown envelopes to ask questions in Parliament.
Wrong. Contrary to the rules.
They don’t do that any more. They don’t need to. The regulations allow them to ask for £10,000 a day for a perfectly legal second job.
Joke celebrity Matt Hancock, failed Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and party grandee Sir Graham Brady all fell for the latest Westminster hoax.
These men – and note, they are all men, no women were taken in – couldn’t resist the lure of easy cash.
They hadn’t the brains to check on the fake South Korean firm, which was actually a spoof created by campaign group Led By Donkeys.
Yet both Hancock and Kwarteng have fancied themselves as leader of their party and prime minister of our country. Priceless.
Sir Graham Brady, the archbishop-sounding chief shop steward of Tory MPs, promised he could absent himself from the Commons.
His seniority gives him “a bit of flexibility” for sale at a cool £60,000 a year on top of his £84,000 MP’s salary, and £48,000 for two other second jobs.
If these lawmakers haven’t the gumption to spot when they’re being taken for a ride by a gang of lads who meet in a London pub, they’re not fit to hold public office of any kind.
I once had a second job – in Parliament, in the late 1960s, as secretary to the late Eric Moonman, Labour MP for Billericay, Essex.
He worked me hard, and paid me £8. Not an hour, a week.
I learned a lot about politics, but nobody offered me ten bob, much less ten grand, to game the system.
Some working people are doing three jobs to make ends meet. They shame these greedy politicians.
