Tory government embroiled in sleaze row. Hardly an original headline. If its not David Mellor dressing his mistress up in football kit, or John Major being naughty with Edwina Curry (eeeeuuuwwww), then its claiming ‘repairs to my moat’ as parliamentary expenses, or indeed, providing ‘consultation’ to private companies at massive personal gain in strict contradiction of Westminster rules.

Tory sleaze goes back to the very first Conservative; Sir Harrald Poncenby-Smyth-Hunstanley-Whittenshaw, OBE. He was offered a goat by a farmer in his constituency, so that he might then represent the farm’s interests in government matters. This was before Westminster days, so ‘government’ sat in a swamp in Lincolnshire. On Tuesdays. Harrald took the goat, later married it, then after a domestic squabble had it butchered and sold the meat at a local market, destroying the evidence. He raised many issues for the farmer, always maintaining, in the absence of the goat, that ‘he had no external interest in the matter’. But his larder was always full of eggs, milk and pork.

We underpay MPs greatly and yet expect them to be of a ‘certain calibre’. So the Rushi Sunaks of this world leave highly paid employment with banks, take an 80% pay cut for the privilege of applying his wonderful economic skill to an unappreciative nation. We expect our Attorney Generals to leave their millions-a-year legal jobs to earn 120k as cabinet ministers. And then, when they do a bit of car-washing on a Sunday afternoon to supplement their meagre incomes, they get hauled before committees of unemployable Labourites and accused of all manner of immorality.

That may be a touch simplistic. Even by my own exacting standards of simplicity. But what we can’t have is ‘sponsored MPs’. Government ministers, duty-bound to act always and only in the best interest of the nation, yet paid £200k a year by private companies vying for government contracts. Like Owen Paterson.

So we can either pay them more and ban them from outside ‘consultancy’ work (such a vague and grey word its almost like a license to abuse) or just enjoy the divide and jealousy created by an opposition who would find it difficult to get shift-work at McDonalds.

Just for the record, I like the Labour Party. Just not this particular one. The last version was vile, this one is just horrible mediocre (Kier Starmer’s middle name), or bolshy (Anglela Rayner’s full name) or dull.

Boris Johnson is currently a moron.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx