Via a survey carried out for LondonlovesBusiness.com comes this list of the top five London MPs for annual outside earnings on top of their MP salary of £65,738:
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, MP for Kensington (Con) – upwards of £240,000
Nick Raynsford, MP for Greenwich and Woolwich (Lab) – £60,657
Mark Field, MP for Cities of London and Westminster (Con) – £41,740
Jo Johnson, MP for Orpington (Con) – £12,314
Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Lab) – £10,326
What do you think of these figures: good to see MPs having a range of activities or bad to see MPs spending time earning these sorts of sums?
A survey has uncovered the outside interests of dozens of MPs who hold down paid positions, ranging from legal and media work to crofting, and even grave digging. One earns £750 an hour for helping to organise an awards ceremony for the drinks industry, while another is paid more than £1,300 a day to provide business advice.
Among the highest earners is Nick Raynsford, the former housing minister, who collected £148,000 from six private-sector jobs last year, mostly connected to housing, and John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP, who receives more than £200,000 a year from his computer software company.
John Hemming pre-empted the story about himself by a week with a detailed post on his blog:
I am a full time politician, but I remain a director of two companies that I founded and also other businesses that run through as John Hemming Trading. My working week is around 70 hours a week. I spend about 4 hours a month chairing John Hemming & Co LLP. This means that over 98% of my time is spent on political issues.
Edward marsh Thanks for the comment Jana. I’m not sure it’s “wrong” per say as the navy has a wide reach of maritime security responsibilities, many I outlined, the ...
James Hargrave A timely piece given current events. Chronic underinvestment in our energy resilience (especially gas) has left us very exposed, and assuming that isn't solved ...
Jana This article started well but the conclusion is wrong. Ukraine has successfully forced the surviving elements of the once mighty Russian Black Sea Fleet to retr...
cim "The Navy’s offensive capability today is also vital for hard diplomacy"
Nice euphemism. Certainly puts a new spin on recent Lib Dem calls for "diplomatic ...
Simon Marlow @Laurence Cox. I'm one of 5M+ British Citizens who live abroad. You've made the same assumption that Ed Davey did back in March ..that a chunk of British citize...