Second Jobs and Ruling Class Reproduction
To take the heat off Johnson, it is said that Geoffrey Cox was thrown to the wolves. Best known for his colourful but brief tenure as Attorney General during Theresa May's blighted years, making £1m/year from his outside interests, including representing the British Virgin Islands against his own government, ir's safe to say he now has a better claim to fame. If that wasn't bad enough, not only is he a legal whiz who can command top dollar from corrupt tax jurisdictions, he's a dab hand at juggling properties too.
The worst conflict of interest since Paterson voted against his own suspension? Yes, but there are plenty more. Consider Sajid Javid and £300k for three weeks work he did in 2020. Paid for by C3.ai, a Silicon Valley AI firm for advice on the global economy and market opportunities, one can only wonder what insider knowledge and connections he drew on, and to what end. John Redwood gets £193k/year for around two days' work per week chairing a "wealth management" firm. Our old friend Chris Grayling pockets £100k for advising a harbours business, which of course has nothing to do with his enthusiasm for the government's freeports wheeze.
Perhaps more egregious, though chicken feed compared to these titans of industry, was Laurence Robertson trousering £24k from the gambling industry. Again, his propensity to argue against restrictions on betting and casinos undoubtedly gushes at the behest of a deep well of principle. And Iain Duncan Smith, one of the most odious creatures to have sat on the Tory benches, gets £25k from a hand sanitiser company. Coincidentally, the committee he chaired recommended the government approve the non-alcoholic sanitiser his paymasters manufacture. And the capstone on this pyramid of corruption is the grand poo-bah of money grubbing himself, a Prime Minister whose appetite for infidelity is eclipsed only by his roving eye for gift, grift, and gratuity.
The defence of this is well rehearsed by now. We've even had the old chestnut of it was within the rules. But the one the Tories rely on the most is the need to maintain outside interests to keep one grounded in the realities of the day-to-day. The undeclared millions of Jacob Rees-Mogg, apparently, helps keep his fingers on the pulse of Britain. In reality it keeps him in the style to which he is accustomed: that of generations of city spivs and speculators pretending to the mores and "authenticity" of the British landed aristocracy. The same is true of all the top earners. They pave the way for deepening connections between the sectional interests of whichever part of the bourgeois class they hail from or aspire to, and the general political interests of capital the Conservative Party articulates. And they don't think they're doing anything wrong because this is what Tory parliamentarians have always done. Capitalism separates politics and economics, but in practice it's standard ruling class practice to overcome this by stuffing their chosen parties with actual capitalists, their lackeys and their agents. These relationships are personally lucrative for the MPs concerned, but helps ensure the Tories remain the favoured vehicle of the British bourgeoisie.
But this is not a smooth process, and reproduces a pecking order within the party - one pregnant with tensions and potential dangers. For them. For every well-heeled ex-PM who can effortlessly leverage their dodgy connections to pad out their Swiss bank accounts, there are others who aren't so blessed. The IDS-types of this world selling their wretched political souls for a mere £25k. The Esther McVeys who'll gobble up tickets to sporting events, and the others who'll take five grand here, eight grand there, these often enter parliament without the networks or the "skills" of the upper tier bung takers, and prostrate themselves with a planted question here or a helpful recommendation there. Services rendered now might mean favours returned later - a few non-executive chairships to see them through their dotage.
There is an unseemly and behind-closed-doors competition for these sinecures, lubricated by coffee mornings with the CEO and liquid lunches with the money men. But thanks to the scale of the last Tory general election victory, we've seen the introduction of new agonisms within the Tories' parliamentary ranks. Consider the rumbles and bellyaching from the red wall contingent. Many of these new MPs were frustrated by the three-line whip on the Paterson vote, with one complaining about having been "hung out to dry to protect someone who wouldn’t even recognise me in the corridor". My heart, it bleeds. But many of these MPs are (mostly) from humble backgrounds. Their parliamentary existence is coloured by the fear they are one-term Tories, and the knowledge that once they're out of the Commons there's no chance they'll see £82k/year again. No matter how hard they work, or diligent a constituency MP they are, ultimately their fates are tied to Johnson. If he or his blue-blooded chums screw up through their carelessness and hubris, they know it will be the marginals who'll pay the price. No wonder the new Tories are hopping mad.
This tension can play to Labour's advantage, if the corruption revelations continue to depress Tory polling. There are questions for Labour too given the unerring tendency for some to end up in nice jobs post-parliament. This obviously does have important corrupting influences and fires the career aspirations among layers of the Labour right, but the scale of the corporate troughing are a mouse's snack against the hearty feasts top Tories trough on.
The Tories will fight tooth and nail to prevent bans on directorships and "advisory roles". They benefit personally, its keeps the links between party and class alive, and it says to business-types with political aspirations that they won't have to slum it on a much reduced salary to meet them. The threat to make this more difficult isn't a minor inconvenience, for them it's potentially existential and cuts to the quick of what the Tory party is about. All the more reason to back bans on Tory MPs' second jobs.
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