Members’ outside earnings are transparent. These scandals have been hiding in plain sight
The corruption of British political life could easily be stopped, and ending second jobs for MPs is a very obvious place to start. But that kind of change requires a government – and a prime minister – that respects standards in public life. At the moment, we have neither.
An intensely relaxed attitude to politicians becoming filthy rich emanates from the very top of this government. Boris Johnson flagrantly flouted the rules of parliament’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) when he returned to his £275,000-a-year job as a columnist for the Daily Telegraph just days after resigning as foreign secretary in 2018. Ex-ministers are supposed to wait three months before taking on jobs to avoid them exploiting access to government contacts.
Peter Geoghegan is investigations editor of openDemocracy
