“Money Doesn’t Talk, It Swears”

Westminster Accounts database covers the entirety of the current parliament, from December 19, 2019, and will be updated until the next General Election held in 2025 or earlier. According to Sky News, the database information is collected from:

The Register of Members’ Financial Interests: Earnings from secondary employment, cash donations, gifts (including all gifted international travel), and other benefits for all sitting and former members of the current parliament. The Register of All-Party Parliamentary Groups: Cash donations, gifts and other benefits for all APPGs that have operated at any point during the current parliament, as well as membership lists for each group. The Electoral Commission: Cash donations, gifts and other benefits received by all political parties currently represented in the House of Commons.

MPs have earned £17.1m on top of their salaries in this parliament, with around two-thirds of the money going to just 20 MPs.

A joint project between Sky News and Tortoise Media shone a light on how money works in politics. They found the majority of the extra earnings went to Tory politicians - a total of £15.2m - while Labour MPs earned an additional £1.2m. All MPs are paid a base salary of £84,144 (plus generous expenses).

Former prime minister Theresa May received the most on the list, earning £2,550,876 since the session began in December 2019. Her single biggest pay cheque came from Cambridge Speaker Series, who gave her £408,200 for six talks in California, as well as flights and accommodation for her and a member of staff. Meanwhile, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy topped his party’s list with additional earnings of £202,599.

The debate over second jobs dominated 2021 after former Tory MP Owen Paterson became embroiled in a lobbying scandal that eventually led to his resignation.

In the first 3 months of 2023 Boris Johnson has declared additional income of over £4,000,000. He has registered an advance payment of nearly £2.5m for speaking events, in his latest declaration of outside earnings. It brings the former prime minister’s declared income since leaving office last September to almost £4.8m. He has previously recorded nearly £1.8m in speaking fees since his departure. Mr Johnson has also registered a further £13,500 in accommodation from JCB boss Lord Bamford and his wife Carole for January and February. It brings the total value of accommodation he has registered from the couple for him and his family since leaving Downing Street to £74,000.

The nearly £2.5m advance in his latest declaration is from the New York-based Harry Walker speaking agency, for an unspecified number of speeches. It comes on top of almost £1.8m he has registered since leaving office for nine speeches delivered in the US, India, Portugal, the UK and Singapore. As well as a £510,000 advance for his political memoirs from publisher HarperCollins, he has also declared £1,943 since leaving No 10 in royalty payments for previously written books. Under ministerial rules, former ministers are not allowed to take jobs that involve influencing government for two years after leaving their post.

But Mr Johnson’s latest declarations are the latest demonstration of how much former leaders can earn shortly after leaving office (even while still a serving MP) through book deals and on the lucrative speaking circuit. The £4.8m in earnings that Mr Johnson has declared since leaving No 10 just over five months ago is more than 50 times his yearly £84,144 MP salary. A company set up to support his activities as a former PM has also received £1m from crypto currency investor Christopher Harborne. Mr Harborne has previously donated more than £15m to the Conservatives, the Brexit Party, and Reform UK. Mr Johnson was forced to resign by his ministers last July after a series of controversies prompted a mass walk-out among his ministers.

https://news.sky.com/westminsteraccounts

The failure by this prime minister to sack is very revealing: his intent was to enable the senior ministers to retain financial benefits of resigning, and shore up far-right support. So much for integrity and accountability…

For The Boat People & Against The UK Government & Putin

‘Chimes of Freedom’ is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Tom Wilson produced 1964 album ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB DYLAN. The song depicts the thoughts and feelings of the singer and his companion as they shelter from a lightning storm under a doorway after sunset. The singer expresses his solidarity with the downtrodden and oppressed, believing that the thunder is tolling in sympathy for them.

Chimes of Freedom

Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorways, thunder went crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seemin’ to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden as the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, they abandoned and forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burning constantly at stake
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leavin’ only bells of lightning and it’s thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

And the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute
For the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chained and cheated by pursuit
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flared
And the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from driftin’
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Starry-eyed and laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time and we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin’

By Bob Dylan