May I ask that for a moment or two readers imagine that they are an employer?
One of your staff comes to you and asks for some time off, say a couple of days per month, as in that time they want to work for someone else for huge sums of money and additionally they want to be kept on your payroll whilst they pursue these alternative activities, which by the way, are of no use to you at all.
As ludicrous as such a scenario is, nevertheless we as a nation appear to be quite content for our parliamentary representatives to do just that.
Currently there is much media coverage of foreign monies being used to influence public and political opinion and some may construe this as corruption, of course one cannot infer that this applies to MPs moonlighting.
Many MPs take up extra employment with little if any scrutiny or supervision beyond that of a register of their interests.
No one asks how they can justify being paid, say £12,000 a year, for a few hours work which we are assured comes out of their private time and does not interfere with the work for which we, the taxpayers, pay them and pay them well. Gullibility is alive and well and the word does not appear in the dictionary!
Criticisms of MPs in this paper in the past have produced letters of praise and support extolling the virtues of those being criticised, perhaps this time we might get some hard facts such as actual hours involved and details about value for money to the taxpayer.
Who knows, perhaps an MP might step forward?
Will the system change? Not whilst those with access to the deepest troughs have control.
I Sloan
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