Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Off Topic => Topic started by: wilts rover on March 23, 2021, 06:06:38 pm
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Or maybe not.
In New Zealand because of the pandemic all ministers and many MP's took a pay cut to help the country.
In the UK MP's have earned £5 million extra from second jobs, mostly from tax havens, banks and companies that won COVID contacts, whilst voting to refuse to extend free school meals in the holidays and fund real terms pay rise for nurses:
https://twitter.com/PeterKGeoghegan/status/1374328370075422721
but flags...
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Wilts, do you have any figures on how much, if anything, that the NZ MPs earned from their other jobs.
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While I agree they should only have one job, it’s not just the tories Gordon brown made hundreds of thousands off a second job, the last time I saw which was a few years ago there was around 80 tories and 20 labour with second jobs
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Didn't Gordon Brown give his extra earnings to charity and not take the generous PM pension?
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Exactly right HR.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13106803.gordon-brown-is-highest-earning-mp-with-137m-but-he-gives-it-all-to-charity/
Only takes a second to check Bpool. There is simply no excuse for spreading that sort of untruth.
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He wasn’t telling an untruth though was he.
Brown did make lots of money off his other job.
Bpool just didn’t finish the tale.
Further back in the thread wilts wrote about NZ and our MPs but has only told half a story.
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He didn't have "another job".
He gave speeches and talks for which the attendees paid very highly with the money going to charity. And he wrote memoirs and gave away every penny of the profits.
"Another job" is when you run a hedge fund, or get paid £1000 an hour into your own pocket for advising companies who entirely incidentally then win uncontested Govt contracts.
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Splitting hairs a bit there bst.
Surely doing speeches etc is another job.
No doubt the lecture will be along soon.
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Hound.
Have you read the report?
"All the fees from speeches and writings are not paid to him and all the money goes directly to charity or to fund charitable work by himself and his wife."
How does that possibly square with Bpool's original comment of Brown "making hundreds of thousands off a second job". By that definition, I had a second job last year when I made £400 for charity doing press ups.
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He didn't have "another job".
He gave speeches and talks for which the attendees paid very highly with the money going to charity. And he wrote memoirs and gave away every penny of the profits.
"Another job" is when you run a hedge fund, or get paid £1000 an hour into your own pocket for advising companies who entirely incidentally then win uncontested Govt contracts.
I just looked up this situation bst and according to an Independent article Brown earned £1.37m in payments additional to his salary as PM.
He gave £600,000 to charities and the rest went to “running an office to support my ongoing involvement in public life”.
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Just bizarre how these discussions vanish down a logic black hole. The OP was about payments TO MPs. It is just daft and wrong to equate Brown's situation with the many MPs who absolutely do line their pockets from second jobs.
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Hound.
Grand. So that's a second source that says Brown didn't take the money himself. As I say, implicitlybequating Brown's situation with MPs who get paid £1000 an hour straight into their pockets to advise companies is simply daft.
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Just bizarre how these discussions vanish down a logic black hole. The OP was about payments TO MPs. It is just daft and wrong to equate Brown's situation with the many MPs who absolutely do line their pockets from second jobs.
I suppose you would have approved of a diversification to the thread had Johnson or Cameron been the subject of bpools post.
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Hound.
Grand. So that's a second source that says Brown didn't take the money himself. As I say, implicitlybequating Brown's situation with MPs who get paid £1000 an hour straight into their pockets to advise companies is simply daft.
Mmmm, I suppose that might depend on how you interpret Brown's version of what running an office meant.
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I offer no evidence to suggest that the ‘report’ is wrong, but the info about giving all his earnings away to good causes comes from a spokesman in Brown’s office.
A bit like Dave Nice telling us that Mike Smash does a lot of work for charidee but doesn’t like to talk about it.
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I offer no evidence
Why change the habit of a lifetime?
To answer the substantive point you are nearly making, it would have been very silly for the spokesman to lie about it, given the the accounts are published.
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Just bizarre how these discussions vanish down a logic black hole. The OP was about payments TO MPs. It is just daft and wrong to equate Brown's situation with the many MPs who absolutely do line their pockets from second jobs.
I suppose you would have approved of a diversification to the thread had Johnson or Cameron been the subject of bpools post.
You don't need to do this Hound. It demeans the discussion.
If someone had implied that Cameron had personally profitted from hawking himself out when he hadn't, I would have corrected it. As it happens, Cameron has made a large amount of money from a book and speeches since stepping down as PM and there's no indication he's given a penny if it to charity. As for Johnson, he was paid £250k per year for writing articles for the Telegraph while an MP prior to Brexit. Again, there's no evidence of that going anywhere except into his pocket.
You have this absolute fixation with all politicians being as bad as each other, when the evidence shows they are not. Equally, you have this obsession with me being unfairly partisan, which makes you believe that I'd behave a certain way in hypothetical scenarios.
Back to Brown. If he was in the game to line his pockets, why on earth turn down the PM's pension that he was actually entitled to? That was about £70k per year turned down.
Regarding his office, you don't have to interpret anything. It's all out there.
https://gordonandsarahbrown.com/gordon-brown/
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I offer no evidence
Why change the habit of a lifetime?
To answer the substantive point you are nearly making, it would have been very silly for the spokesman to lie about it, given the the accounts are published.
Hardly a report, though, Billy. However much you edit my posts.
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With regards to Cameron or Johnson, maybe they don’t like to publicise it if they do give money to charities.
Lots of people donate to charities on a regular basis.
Not everyone boasts about it or makes it common knowledge.
Again, I notice that you are ok with wilts offering a one sided OP in that he doesn’t offer any information on how much extra money the NZ MPs earn from activities outside of their Parliamentary duties.
It is a very biased post.
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As you brought up the matter of NZ and second jobs into the conversation why don't you hound?
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Interesting take Hound.
When there is solid evidence that Brown didn't personally benefit from his book and speeches, you insinuate that he might have.
When there is no evidence that Cameron and Johnson didn't personally benefit from writing and speeches, you suggest that they might not have done.
As a debating style, it's certainly a tough one to counter.
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While I agree they should only have one job, it’s not just the tories Gordon brown made hundreds of thousands off a second job, the last time I saw which was a few years ago there was around 80 tories and 20 labour with second jobs
I DO know as it is well documented that Grant Shapps DID have a second job when it was illegal to have one
A Consituent claimed he was calling himself Michael Green and Shapps denied it but it was proven true
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/15/grant-shapps-admits-he-had-second-job-as-millioniare-web-marketer-while-mp
Later this person became Tory Party Chair and is now of course Transport Minister and always has his flag when on Telly - h7s Red Box placed to show he is "busy" and a Book with Grant Shapps in massive letters to remind him he is not Michael Green [or other aliases] presumably
The Consituent I am less sure of.
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I find all this quite bizarre, Wilts produced a list that included MPs of all parties, Hound throws in something about NZ, then Selby mentions Brown who’s not been an MP for over ten years. ??
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Hound mentioned NZ because wilts included it in the OP.
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How many NZ mps have a second job hound?
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How many NZ mps have a second job hound?
I don't believe they are allowed but they are incentivised differently. An MP in new Zealand is paid over twice the salary of a UK mp.
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Some UK MPs earn more in their second jobs than NZ MPs earn bfyp, they must ahave plaenty of spare time.
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Are you sure about the pay of NZ mps bfyp?
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While taking an MP salary before the EU vote, Johnson was paid four times an MP's salary to write one article per week for the Telegraph. Many of them slagging off the EU.
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Oh aye. And he called £250k a year "chickenfeed" when questioned on the issue.
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what about the other labour mps that have second jobs, and check Exactly right HR.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13106803.gordon-brown-is-highest-earning-mp-with-137m-but-he-gives-it-all-to-charity/
Only takes a second to check Bpool. There is simply no excuse for spreading that sort of untruth.
Exactly right HR.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13106803.gordon-brown-is-highest-earning-mp-with-137m-but-he-gives-it-all-to-charity/
Only takes a second to check Bpool. There is simply no excuse for spreading that sort of untruth.
are you for real lol yes your right he does give it to charity so fair play and I should not have used him, but it’s not a untruth is it as he did earn it? And there are others that have earned over 100k but you won’t mention them will you
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Alastair Darling and Jack Straw Bpool?
Yes, they did and I strongly disparage them for doing so.
Happy?
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Sorry Selby, it was Blackpool I meant.
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Alastair Darling and Jack Straw Bpool?
Yes, they did and I strongly disparage them for doing so.
Happy?
good as I’ve said I agree mps should only have one job
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Are you sure about the pay of NZ mps bfyp?
It was a quick Google search to establish it that suggested that.
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Second point why would we disparage second jobs? Do we want career politicians or talented people? Isn't the problem the types who are solely politicians with no real world experience (yes Boris Johnson is a strong example).
Would I be an MP for the salary? No chance, it's too low.
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Alastair Darling and Jack Straw Bpool?
Yes, they did and I strongly disparage them for doing so.
Happy?
good as I’ve said I agree mps should only have one job
As a broad principle, yes I agree. Certainly the idea of MPs acting as paid advisers to particular firms is reprehensible. As is MPs running hedge funds or legal practices. Personally, I would allow writing memoirs of a politician's time in high office, not least because there is a need to get that sort of stuff out for the historical record while it is still fresh in the mind. Churchill wrote a six volume epic "The Second World War" between 1945-1953, while he was Leader of the Opposition and PM. Similarly, Brown had been the pre-eminent world leader in coordinating the global response to the Great Recession. That was by far the greatest problem the world had had to deal with since the War and one Nobel Prize winning economist said at the time "Thank God for Gordon Brown because he is the only major leader who knows what we need to do economically to stop this turning into a Great Depression" (might not be the exact quote but it was words to that effect). In that light, it was vital that his experiences were recorded as soon as possible for the historical record.
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Are you sure about the pay of NZ mps bfyp?
It was a quick Google search to establish it that suggested that.
This link doesn't bear that out bfyp
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/106445791/politicians-pay-around-the-world-how-our-mps-salaries-stack-up
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Second point why would we disparage second jobs? Do we want career politicians or talented people? Isn't the problem the types who are solely politicians with no real world experience (yes Boris Johnson is a strong example).
Would I be an MP for the salary? No chance, it's too low.
I hugely agree with you on the salary issue. We pay MPs less than most comp school deputy heads. We pay them less than almost anywhere else in the developed world. That is ridiculous. But MPs know that when they take on the job. I simply cannot see how an MP can run a hedge fund or a legal practice and give the MP job anything like the time it requires. Similarly, I find the idea of MPs hawking out their knowledge of what is going on in Westminster to whichever company will pay them the most to be reprehensible.