Far from being a ‘storm in a teacup’ – in the famous last words of George Eustice – the Westminster sleaze scandal shows no sign of abating. As day 13 rolls around, Cabinet members Jacob Rees-Mogg and Grant Shapps are respectively facing questions about £6 million of undeclared loans and, er, spending taxpayers’ money on lobbyists fighting the government’s own plans to build on private runways. Surreal stuff.
Few MPs have featured as much in the discourse around ‘second jobs’ as Geoffrey Cox, the baritone barrister who juggles his judicial jaunts with his duties in Torridge and West Devon. One of Steerpike’s readers has written in to note wryly that on Cox’s profile at Withers LLP – the legal firm paying him all those millions – there is no mention in his summary biography that he is, in fact, an MP too. It is only under a separate pop-out ‘full profile’ that one finds his parliamentary role listed under a section dubbed ‘memberships’, as one might declare one’s membership of White’s or Boodle’s in Who’s Who.
Still, Cox is by no-means the only MP double-jobbing, as Steerpike’s probe of Labour MPs revealed last week. And, as desperate hacks, look for ways to extend the current Parliament jobs row into week three, Mr S has been looking at the publicly available register of interests of Members’ secretaries and research assistants. According to this list, more than 100 serve as elected councillors across the country, with seven elected to multiple council posts while potentially working in MPs’ offices too.
A further 19 listed in this register as holding a privileged parliamentary pass declare themselves to be providing or running political consultancy services – including Charley Allan of Solidarity Consulting Ltd, whose pass is sponsored by Richard Burgon, the Labour backbencher campaigning to ban MPs from holding second jobs.
Solidarity lists Richard Hanford and Michael Calderbank as its directors on Companies House – both men are sponsored by Burgon’s Socialist Campaign Group colleagues Grahame Morris and Mick Whiteley, with a fourth Solidarity consultant, Kate Emily Dove sponsored by Mick Whitley. The ‘not for profit’ consultancy had £118,000 in assets as of its most recent financial statements.
On the Tory side, Edward Timpson sponsors Daniel Large, who runs an eponymous communications firm, while Alicia Kearns’ parliamentary advisor Connor MacDonald lists Hanbury Strategy as among his clients for work exclusively outside of the UK.
With Lindsay Hoyle demanding a crackdown on former MPs using their passes to lobby, will a review of current MPs’ passholders be next?
Comments