It appears David Lammy isn’t the only MP building a lucrative media career. Turning on GB News yesterday, Mr S enjoyed seeing not one but two Tory backbenchers presenting a show together: Esther McVey and her husband Philip Davies. The pair are very much the Beyonce and Jay Z of the Commons, having enjoyed parliamentary freebies together for a number of years.
And now the couple seem to be making the most publicly out of their private lives by hosting a programme on which they regularly invite their fellow Conservative MPs. Yesterday’s offering for instance boasted not one but two of McVey’s colleagues, with both Treasury minister John Glen and veteran Sir Christopher Chope being interviewed for segments on the show. Two Tory MPs interviewing a third? Talk about televising the 1922 committee.
Luckily for the couple there are rewards in such commitments. McVey, a former GMTV presenter in a previous life, has taken home a tidy haul in outside media appearances over the past year. Prior to taking up a gig at GB News, she also tried her hand at doing pilots for the soon-to-launch TalkTV, being paid £850 from News UK. She has since collected almost £14,000 from GB News while her columns for the Daily Express have netted her an additional £7,000 bringing her total media earnings to more than £22,000 since February 2021, on top of a parliamentary salary of £81,932.
News UK, Reach and GB News: it’s impressive to earn a living from a trio of media conglomerates. Davies, for his part, has had less success but still managed £3,000 from the Express plus £2,000 from GB News. Fortunately both McVey and Davies have taken care to maintain the work/life balance, declaring tickets to Ascot, Wembley and Wimbledon together last year. The couple are both member of the Blue Collar Conservatives group which previously co-hosted a conference with the Express back in autumn 2020. They aren’t however the only Tory MPs to have a show on GB News: rising star Dehenna Davison receives £369-a-week for ‘The Political Correction.’
First print and now broadcast too? Steerpike looks forward to seeing which medium the couple will be next to conquer.
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