Are ministers better off today?

From the Barometer in this week’s Spectator.

Home Office minister Mark Simmonds resigned this week, complaining he couldn’t afford to live in London on his junior minister’s salary of £89,435. His resignation echoes that of Lord Gowrie, who resigned as minister for the arts in September 1985 complaining he couldn’t live in London on £33,000 a year. Are ministers better off now than they were then?

— If you uprate Lord Gowrie’s 1985 salary with the Retail Prices Index (which the government now regards as overstating inflation), it would be worth £85,000, less than the sum earned by Simmonds.However, Lord Gowrie’s was a cabinet post and would now carry a salary of £134,565.

— Only when it comes to buying a home are MPs (like everyone else) less well off now than in 1985. While a cabinet minister’s salary has increased by a little over four times, average London property prices (as measured by the Nationwide) have increased by 7.65 times.