MPs from a certain background feel the need to maintain their lifestyles and hold on to an insurance policy for life after politics
Over the past few weeks, the news has been dominated by headlines about MPs who abuse the parliamentary rules that allow them to have second jobs. This is a misleading, generalised account of a specific and exceptional problem. The scandal is the direct result of Conservative ideology, one that has a fundamentally contemptuous opinion of public service and a tradition of leveraging political contacts to feather nests.
In the past 18 months, 148 MPs spent some time on a second job, according to the register of members’ interests. Out of this number 114 of them were Conservatives, whose activities make up 87% of the income from those second jobs. Most of that income is from roles in the private sector; accountancy, investment banking, energy, pharmaceuticals and independent legal work. Such is the time dedicated to these roles, and the pay netted from them, that it could be argued that being a Tory MP is itself the second job; or in some instances, the third or fourth.
Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist
