Tories across the UK are renowned for holding down numerous extra little earners as board members on private health and housing companies. Sometimes they are serial board members with numerous fees for attendance maybe once a month.
Now Scotland’s new team of Tories may lose thousands if a new bill to restrict such activity makes it through the Scottish Parliament. Labour MSP Neil Findlay’s members bill seeks to restrict the extent to which MSPs can take on extra jobs to earn beyond their current and not-to-bad, £61 778 a year.
Needless to say, it’s the Tories who have the most to lose if he succeeds as I hope he does.
Here are some of the bigger ones:
Alexander Burnett £120 000 AJA Burnett (£10 000 a day?)
£6 120 North Banchory Company
Adam Tomkins £35 000 Glasgow University
Donald Cameron £50 000 2 non-exec directorship (2.5 days work?)
Edward Mountain £40 000 Delfur Farms (2-4 hours per week?)
£14 000 Delfur Fishing (1 hour per week?)
John Scott £10,000 farming
Peter Chapman £20,000 farming
Michelle Ballantyne £10,000 manufacturing business
Tomkins famously said he could not afford to live on the MSP salary with his four children!
Talking-up Scotland 
Well, I have fairly strong opinions about MSPs holding more than that job – it is a full time job, at least that level pay indicates it is, and they should not have time for any other – unless it is a periodic update in professional skills (eg the medical profession, but then they can do that on their holidays?).
I caught a bit of Neil Findlay talking about this, says he is a brickie, still has the tools in the shed, but wouldn’t consider doing that job while still an MSP. Meanwhile we have the self-perpetuating elitism of other MSPs holding down board positions, and whoever the opposing MSP was (missed most of this report) said that having a job in business was a good way to keep in touch with people – eh? Since when was a business boss in touch with anything except business, markets and their own profits? Neil Findlay did respond he was very much in touch with ordinary people in his day job of being an MSP. Conflicts of interest arise to a serious extent when an MSP (or any politician) has a financial interest in a political decision – I certainly do not rely on the good graces or intentions of any politician when they have a vested interest in a policy.
I hope they clamp down on any second (third, fourth,,,) job for MSPs and strict rules on when it can be used at a pinch – if you don’t like the pay, get a different job. How about any outside earnings are taken off your MSP pay – but even then, even if they were MSPs for free, they cannot be working for our best while so compromised.
I was actually slightly glad at one Tory being elected to Westminster – that waste-of-space part-timer referee ex-MSP – at least we got some dead wood out of our Scottish Parliament (obviously very glad he’s not my MP!).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Had a quick rake through Parliament website, and thought to look through the register of interests, but it’ll take ages!
Click to access Session5Year1_12.05.17-23.05.17.pdf
That’s for the past year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
With you all the way on these comments. Does that make me Agreeable to your Contrary?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ahh, hah, well, that’s quite a conundrum, if you are Agreeable, surely I couldn’t be Contrary? Because you agreed, it wasn’t contrary…. Except, Contrary to popular opinion, I can occasionally talk sense, and, therefore, you can be Agreeable 🙂
Wow. That took some amount of brain power!
LikeLike