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00:00A Dyson floor lamp, a £4,000 fountain pen, box sets of Scandi Noir TV dramas.
00:06These are all things that Peter Murrell, former Chief Executive of the SNP
00:09and husband of the former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon,
00:13bought with party funds over the last decade.
00:16Oh, Peter. Today, we turn our attention to what happens when money meets politics.
00:21And ask, should MPs get paid more?
00:23Time for Helen and I to disagree agreeably, as they say.
00:27Or not, depending on how this show goes.
00:30I'm Helen McNamara, the former Deputy Cabinet Secretary.
00:32And I'm Cleo Watson, a former Special Advisor in Number 10.
00:35And this is In The Room.
00:39Before we get into it, we'd love it if you followed us on Instagram,
00:43where you can find all the best clips of the show.
00:46Our handle is at intheroom.pod.
00:49You can also watch us on YouTube. We are called In The Room Politics.
00:53And if you've got a burning question or you just want to send us some fan mail,
00:56you can email us on intheroom at independent.co.uk.
01:00Let's start with the story that's caught our eye, which is this extraordinary litany of crimes,
01:07in fact, that Peter Morrell has admitted to yesterday. Cleo?
01:11Yeah, so the Dyson floor lamp and the Scandi Noir dramas were just a drop in the ocean of what
01:18he has been spending £400,000 worth of SNP money on.
01:23Should we do a quick CV of Peter Morrell, just so everyone knows where we are,
01:27if they've been living under a rock this morning?
01:30He was the chief executive of the Scottish National Party from 2001 to 2023.
01:36So quite a long time in the role.
01:38And he was married to the former Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, until last year.
01:44So Nicola Sturgeon has said, and we should be clear about this,
01:46because she said very clearly, repeatedly, that she knew absolutely nothing about these luxury items.
01:52She's as shocked by everybody else at the criminality.
01:54Yeah, so she had quite an interesting defence and a fair one, probably, which was we both end pretty good
01:59money.
01:59We weren't spending much because we didn't get to socialise much or go on holidays because I was doing this
02:04big job.
02:05So I just assumed were things that he'd bought out of our own money and they don't have a shared
02:09bank account.
02:10So it just wouldn't have occurred to her, I guess, like verify his receipts and so on.
02:15But it is embarrassing.
02:16I've actually got a bit of a soft spot for the motorhome because I just think there's something very romantic
02:21about caravan holidays,
02:23days, canal boat holidays, like Rosie and Jim.
02:26Don't think Cleo's been on either a caravan or canal boat holiday.
02:30I have, but I'm bent double for almost the whole time.
02:32Is he far too tall to fit into a caravan or a canal boat, surely?
02:35Yeah.
02:36It's just like all these stories.
02:37It's actually very serious what he's done.
02:39It's nearly half a million pounds worth of money he's embezzled from party funds.
02:44And that means from donors.
02:45I mean, that's the thing.
02:46There's lots of people who are very angry.
02:48So this is people who were thinking that they were donating to the cause of Scottish independence,
02:52which is something they feel very strongly about and donating quite small amounts of money.
02:57And then there he is spending thousands of pounds on a pen, which is the only bit of it they
03:01actually understand.
03:02Yeah.
03:03I was looking at the pen stuff and I was thinking, that is so you.
03:08I do love a pen.
03:09I've never, to be clear, spent more than a normal amount of money on a pen.
03:13In over 12 years, he spent £22,844 on pens.
03:19Not biros.
03:20These are like luxury fountain pens.
03:22What's your pen budget, Helen?
03:24It's significantly, I'd say a hundredth of that maybe over the same period.
03:29But as ever with these things, it's a serious amount of money.
03:32It's a serious crime he's committed.
03:34But the juicy stuff is the small bits that he's spent it on.
03:38Or actually not that small because we were talking about pens there, the motorhome.
03:43He bought part of a Jaguar SUV, a VW Golf.
03:46He bought boutique cosmetics, which I'm keen to learn.
03:50What's a boutique cosmetic?
03:50I know.
03:52I'm keen to know more about that.
03:53Do you think that's part of Nicola's glow up?
03:55I don't know.
03:56She does look great, to be fair.
03:57What we've got here?
03:57The robot lawnmower.
03:59Gosh, look at that.
04:01That looks quite scary.
04:02What's that?
04:03That's a Jaguar.
04:05It's a Jaguar car.
04:0681,000 pounds.
04:07That's a good correction.
04:08Can I just say a Jaguar car is massive?
04:10He bought this massive.
04:11He bought a massive cat.
04:13Got the fully automatic bean-to-cup coffee machine, two and a half grand.
04:17Two and a half grand.
04:18Wow, that's a fancy one.
04:19Oh my goodness.
04:21What's that?
04:21Just so everyone knows, these are the ugliest salt and pepper shakers I've ever seen.
04:26And they are £2,618 for the pair, I imagine.
04:32Bargain.
04:33And there it is.
04:34There's the motorhome.
04:35The motorhome, £124,000.
04:38Gosh, that's a lot of money.
04:39I mean, there's fun to be had here, for sure.
04:42But the whole thing does dredge up something we're quite familiar with, which is money beats politics.
04:48Yes, and also risk-taking behaviour by individuals who ought to know better and slightly get stuck in these situations.
04:56Yeah, I mean, I'd like to cast our minds back, Helen, as we love to do, to our experiences of
05:01being in the room for these kinds of stories.
05:04So we should be absolutely clear that, you know, Peter Marl, he's been remanded in custody.
05:08He's in big trouble.
05:09He's absolutely committed a crime here.
05:11This is not minor misdemeanours or slightly fudging something.
05:14It's proper criminality.
05:15Yeah, but the minor misdemeanours and slightly fudging something was very much part of our day-to-day lives not
05:22that long ago.
05:23So obviously, before you were Deputy Cabinet Secretary, you were Director General of Propriety and Ethics.
05:28And I worked as a special advisor.
05:30And the first time I really remember, you know, we worked together.
05:34But the first thing I remember us really working together on was Boris Johnson's trip to Mustique, which, you know,
05:41to be clear, is not in the category of Peter Marl here at all.
05:44It was legal, but it was confused.
05:46It was misdeclared.
05:48And there was a kind of sort of farce, really, while we tried to work out the details of what
05:53had gone on.
05:54And you're there in your capacity of, you know, in some ways, protecting the government and the Prime Minister.
05:59And I was there on very much the party political side.
06:02He'd got the trip through a donor and it had been declared through his parliamentary expenses.
06:09And in the end...
06:10Or not, as it turned out.
06:12Yes, misdeclared is actually the term.
06:15And I think it was just a great example of quite a lot of time wasted, actually, trying to get
06:20to the bottom of it.
06:22I definitely remember that.
06:23Yes.
06:24And actually a huge hoo-ha in the media about the holiday, which actually ended up being fine.
06:33But it was the details of it.
06:35It's the idea that it's a private island and that, you know, you can spend up to X many thousands
06:40of pounds being there.
06:42So, yeah, and look, in that story and in general, there is an issue where both there's a perception of
06:48a kind of murky and muckiness between politicians and money.
06:53And over the last kind of period of time, we've seen an awful lot of things emerging where effectively what's
06:59happened is a politician is trying to live a lifestyle which they don't earn the money to match.
07:04And, you know, there be trouble.
07:06Boris Johnson was a good example of that.
07:07He's by no means the only example of that.
07:09And there's a whole history in our recent political lives.
07:13So we saw some of this when Keir Starmer was elected with, like, who'd brought all these clothes and these
07:17fancy glasses and various things.
07:18There is this kind of disconnect and mismatch between how much of a kind of luxe lifestyle politicians seem to
07:26want to have.
07:26And then where does the money come from to support this sort of lifestyle?
07:31Because it sure as hell does not come from the salary you get paid as an MP or the salary
07:35you get paid as a minister.
07:36However grand they might seem, they do not match the kind of lifestyle these people seemingly feel like they deserve
07:43or should be living.
07:44And on top of that, you know, what tripped up Boris Johnson on Mustique was it was the holiday being
07:51misdeclared.
07:52And there's an interesting disconnect, I think, between what is technically allowed, what are politicians allowed to claim, what are
07:59they allowed to spend public money on, what are they allowed to spend donors money on, and what passes what
08:05you might call the sniff test, which is what do the public find acceptable to have money gifted to politicians
08:11for, public money spent on politicians for.
08:14And some of these scandals have just been transparency in the clear light of day on a practice that has
08:20been really normal in Westminster for a very long time.
08:25So we thought we'd start this discussion with going back quite a long way, where I think you were still
08:30at university.
08:31So unfairly, I'm going to ask you to explain to our dear listeners what exactly was going on in the
08:37expenses scandal.
08:38Yeah, so this is 2009.
08:41And we've talked about this before, Helen, there have been so many other expenses scandals surrounding politicians, I mean, going
08:48back decades, but I think this really sticks in the mind, this one.
08:52And it's certainly one of my core memories about politics from the noughties.
08:57And it came a year after the 2008 crash.
09:02And I think that is actually quite important for how the 2009 expenses scandal landed, and what it meant for
09:08the 2010 general election.
09:11Because the public already felt like fat cats at one, banks have been bailed out.
09:16And then seeing the list of what MPs have been claiming on their expenses in Parliament just really came as
09:23a kind of whiplash at the end.
09:24So I'll read a few out just to remind people.
09:28Sir Peter Viggers claimed £1,645 for a floating duck house and over £30,000 for gardening, which included 28
09:39tonnes of manure.
09:40So I'm guessing he didn't have a little...
09:41Insert joke here.
09:42Yeah, he didn't have a little semi round for his small garden around the back.
09:46Douglas Hogg claimed £2,115 to have the moat cleaned at his Lincolnshire Manor house.
09:54I mean, those moats don't clean themselves, famously.
09:57It turns out.
09:57Others claimed for dog food, bath robes, chandeliers, tennis court repairs.
10:03And claims ranged up to about £90,000 spent on upkeep of one MP's country estate.
10:11But there were other things too, weren't there?
10:12There were small things like 76 pence on packets of biscuits and like stuff that felt a bit petty also.
10:20It was the small meanness and the kind of big audacity of how on earth do you think the taxpayer
10:26should be paying for that, that I think particularly resonated.
10:29And some of these things, so the famous duck house example, the fees office didn't allow him to claim that
10:35expense.
10:35But it was, the scandal was the fact that these MP's felt they were entitled to claim these things, which
10:41was a sort of the massive kind of shock factor.
10:45And I remember, so I was a civil servant working in DCMS, that's Department of Culture, Media and Sport, at
10:50the time this all happened.
10:52Gosh, what did it feel like?
10:53Well, the interesting thing is actually, is the people I think were most angry were MPs and ministers who hadn't
10:59been doing this.
11:00So I think the sort of collective shock at the fact that their colleagues had thought this was okay.
11:06I really, I really remember that.
11:08And the kind of vitriol felt by people who had not just been technically following the rules,
11:13but had been showing entire common sense and not trying to game the system.
11:17And actually, rather than the reverse, had been trying to think about what's the smallest amount that I can claim
11:22because this seems reasonable.
11:23And had effectively, I think their family themselves, been subsidising the other way around,
11:28were really genuinely shocked by what they saw was where their colleagues had drawn the line.
11:34So there was a, it was a proper recoil moment, I think, for Westminster.
11:38And it wasn't the case that all MPs were at it because they really weren't.
11:42That was a shock too.
11:43And it does really speak to, you know, we've talked about this so much.
11:47We've talked about how the public have felt since the 2008 crash, what the Brexit referendum meant,
11:53what, you know, 2019 meant, what 2024 has meant.
11:57And this really does fit in with the general perception of the political class, what the establishment are up to.
12:03And people remember, people don't remember, for example, that £1.3 million spread out between 392 politicians.
12:11That's actually quite a lot of the House of Parliament had to repay that back.
12:16People remember the duck pond and the manure and the tennis courts and the biscuits and that kind of thing.
12:21And it's these small details, just like we were saying about Peter Murrell, that sort of hurts more in some
12:27ways than the actual figures and let alone what came afterwards.
12:32So the whole system was tightened up, was it not?
12:34It was, but it's also that thing where you realise that even though you all thought you were doing the
12:39same job,
12:40actually some of you were operating in an entirely different world.
12:43And I definitely, you get similar things when there's a certain kind of person who works in public life,
12:50whether that is a civil servant or an MP or a person who's working in an MP's office,
12:54who will have such a strong version of this money doesn't belong to me.
12:59And this is a non-party political point, by the way.
13:01I've seen and observed this behaviour amongst people who work for all political parties,
13:05that you have such a strong sense of this money isn't mine.
13:08And therefore I've got to, my job is to make the most of it and spend the least of it.
13:13And of course I will effectively, I mean, if I think about the senior civil servants I worked with,
13:18quite often you don't claim expenses, of course you don't.
13:22Like actually you end up paying yourself for,
13:24the taxpayer shouldn't be paying for pizza for your team in the office at nine o'clock in the evening,
13:29so you pay for it and all these other things that you just kind of cross-subsidise the other way.
13:33And then you realise that actually there's a whole set of other people who are not only not playing by
13:37those rules,
13:38they are in fact making some quite breathtaking choices about who they think owes them a living
13:44and where this money's come from and that they will claim expenses for all manner of things.
13:48Oh yeah, like everyone has a friend, right?
13:50Where, so you go out for a meal together and most of you think we'll just cut it four or
13:55six ways
13:56and it doesn't matter if someone had a starter or not.
13:59We've all got a friend who's like, can I see if I can pay a bit less than my fair
14:04share
14:04or I'm only going to pay for what I had?
14:06Like there are people, and we've all done this a bit where I think it feels,
14:13I think one of the reasons it hurts so much is it kind of feels true to a lot of
14:16people too.
14:17Everyone knows someone who will like absolutely expense, I don't know, 11p or whatever it is
14:24off their train fare or whatever to absolutely get what they want.
14:29And the rest of us are just like, I just don't know if I can be arsed.
14:32Yeah, entirely.
14:33Or not sure what they want, what they feel like they're entitled to.
14:36And I think that's one of the other kind of rotten threads that goes through politics and money
14:40is that you see this disconnect between ministers in particular, but it doesn't have to be ministers,
14:47it can be MPs who are living a life that they actually can't afford.
14:52Yes, well we've got a very good example of that actually,
14:56which was another of the issues that we worked on together was when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister
15:02and he wanted to redecorate his flat.
15:05The flat that belongs to the taxpayer.
15:07That is the Prime Minister's residence and they pay council tax on that in Downing Street.
15:12And I just think it's a great example of, I think in many ways he ended up as Prime Minister
15:17living a bit beyond his means.
15:19And we can talk about salaries later because I do think it's an interesting question that you
15:24I can disagree on sometimes.
15:26But what is interesting there is that he did not, you know, he did not defraud the taxpayer
15:30in any way.
15:31He did not misuse public funds.
15:32The Conservative Party, via a donor, actually helped him do the renovations that he wanted
15:40to do in the Downing Street flat.
15:42Now, the Conservative Party did get fined by the Electoral Commission.
15:46So again, this was not a legal problem, but it was a misuse of party funds because guess
15:52what?
15:52It wasn't declared properly.
15:54But again, you know, the stuff people remember from that whole story was things like gold
16:00wallpaper and less so about actually where the money came from, who gave the money, how
16:06it was used.
16:07It's the out of touch thing, right?
16:08And it's a touch of the Marie Antoinette when you are, you know, spending a lot of time
16:12and money, however much, whoever's paying for it, the fact that you are spending that amount
16:17of money on interior design and wallpaper is not a great look.
16:22Yes.
16:23Although I would argue, I mean, I can't really believe I'm doing this because I do actually
16:26support your point.
16:27But I think it is a stronger case that he wasn't using public money to do it.
16:32It's a bit like how I feel about policing football matches.
16:36Football matches cost the taxpayer a lot of money to please.
16:40And when you see how much Premier League footballers earn and what clubs make, I think they should
16:47pay for it.
16:48I did not have Leo Watson talking about football on my bingo card.
16:51I know.
16:52I mean, that is the extent of my knowledge.
16:54I've just used it all.
16:56Yeah.
16:56That's quite an argument to start, Watson.
16:58Very excited about the World Cup.
17:00You're absolutely right, though.
17:01Like, he didn't use public money.
17:02In some ways, I think he did it the right way, which was to get a donor to do it.
17:05And to be really clear, I'm not advocating that public money should have been spent on
17:08Lulu Little and gold wallpaper.
17:11I'm just saying you've got two or three problems that all come together here.
17:15One which is politicians thinking, wouldn't it be really nice?
17:18Or shouldn't I be looking really great in all my lovely clothes?
17:22So Keir Starmer and his wife and various other figures in the new Labour government, not
17:28new Labour, capital N, new Labour, small then, got into trouble because a Labour donor, again,
17:35Waheed Ali, had been paying for clothes and for some very snazzy glasses and various things,
17:42which on, you know, Keir Starmer's salary, presumably, he decided he couldn't afford,
17:47didn't want to afford.
17:48And there is a really weird thing where we actually ask, particularly if you think about
17:53the spouse of the Prime Minister, you know, male or female, to always look fine and fancy.
17:58Go to these events.
18:00Go to a lot of events.
18:01Like, I'm pretty sure that Vic Starmer's normal work-a-day life wardrobe would not include
18:06like 18 different dresses you need to wear for these different events.
18:09And there is an argument about, you know, is it OK?
18:13Is it not OK?
18:15But it just looks so bad.
18:17It looks so out of touch.
18:18And the sums of money for normal people are just ridiculous.
18:22Yeah.
18:22I mean, in that case, it was nearly £40,000.
18:24I mean, it's a lot of money on clothes.
18:28And again, you're right.
18:30This is not taxpayers' money.
18:32It's Lord Ali's money.
18:33But I think there was a much cleverer, more sophisticated way for Labour to have handled
18:37that.
18:38You know, the Conservative Party, I don't know if it does anymore, but certainly when they
18:42were in opposition before 2010, there was a kind of leader's budget, which was put aside
18:47specifically for this, for some discreet travel and for some discreet clothes and this
18:54kind of thing.
18:54And like...
18:55I was so naive about this stuff, though, because I remember the conversations with the
18:58party about the flat, saying like, what?
19:01Hold on.
19:01People who donate money or are members of the Conservative Party are giving money and then
19:05this is how it's being spent.
19:07It was baffling to me, I have to confess.
19:09Hey, you've got to look good.
19:11Well, I don't disagree with that for one second.
19:13I mean, in many ways, it's just like a clever, casual wheeze, I suppose, to be able to, you
19:19know, use helicopters and cars and, like I said, clothes and that kind of thing.
19:27And it's a way to be able to make sure the leader is taken care of, particularly because
19:32you don't get the same kind of help as you do when you're in government.
19:36It means it's a stress that they're not having to worry about quite so much.
19:41So it's things like, you know, the spouse of a leader of a party, let alone the Prime
19:45Minister, might want to have a completely normal life and keep working.
19:48But in lots of cases, they actually can't because their partner now has a very, very
19:53full-on job.
19:55And this isn't a way to sort of salary them, but you can at least make sure that the family
19:59have what they need to be able to carry on.
20:03And that would be better, right?
20:04It's cleaner to do a version of there is a sort of allowance for the family or the person.
20:09Right.
20:10And this is how we fund it.
20:11And this is what we do.
20:11And it's a tailor's older time.
20:13And it's the same for everybody.
20:14And it's always like this.
20:15That will be much cleaner than what you sometimes get is kind of discovering it later.
20:19Yeah.
20:19Instead of having to declare item by item, £2,485 on glasses.
20:24We've got a couple of other kind of examples swirling around at the moment.
20:28So there's, you know, Zach Polanski's non-payment of his council tax, which is a, does raise
20:35questions of who do you think was paying it?
20:37Who do you think pays for these things?
20:38Even if you're not a member of the GLA and somebody who effectively works in local government,
20:44you know that you're supposed to pay council tax.
20:46So were you so incurious that you didn't pay attention to that yourself?
20:49I think that looks like, who do you think owes you a living?
20:52And then we've also got Nigel Farage at the moment and an undeclared, technically, probably
20:58correctly undeclared donation.
21:00But nevertheless, it just looks like you're living a lifestyle that you aren't exactly
21:04paying for.
21:05Yes.
21:05I actually wanted to ask you about this specifically because it's such an interesting one.
21:10This £5 million donation was gifted to him before he became an MP.
21:17In fact, apparently, before he even decided to stand as an MP.
21:21So he was a private individual, but very much in the public eye.
21:25So this is for security and so on.
21:27This is the understanding.
21:29But it didn't come to light until The Guardian reported it.
21:33We see this reaction often, you know, whether it's the expenses scandal, whether it is the,
21:38you know, COVID VIP lanes, things like that, where the state reacts once it becomes clear
21:44that something isn't fit for purpose.
21:46Do you think it will be the case that we might start looking at what have politicians
21:50earned, say, five years before they've come to elected office or anything like that?
21:53So I think one of the problems with these scandals is that the reflex is to look shocked and
22:00horrified by it and then create some more rules.
22:03And so that everybody can say, well, technically, I was within the rules.
22:06And then it's the rules' fault.
22:07And the process.
22:08And the process.
22:09I often have rules and process.
22:11And, you know, I was only obeying orders.
22:13Here I am.
22:13I mean, I think there is a, whatever Mr. Farage is saying about his rationale for why he did
22:19or he didn't do these things, a donation of that, a personal donation of that size to a
22:24party leader, it's just kind of common sense that firstly, you should have anticipated at
22:28some point that was going to come out because people can do some really simple maths about
22:33where did you get, where did you get all that money from?
22:36So, you know, you should always be ahead of these things.
22:39And I don't think the answer is rules and process.
22:42I think the answer is actually behaving reasonably and responsibly and sensibly.
22:47And the more that we create this extraordinary industrial kind of architecture around these
22:51things, the less we're putting responsibility on the individual who, particularly in politicians'
22:56cases, and we can get to another day of how this should work for people who aren't elected,
23:00but you can get fired by the electorate.
23:02That's the beauty of our political system.
23:04And actually, over a long period of time, what's happened is people who've been caught
23:08up in money scandals, more so than people who've been caught up in sex scandals, do get fired
23:12by the electorate.
23:13So there is like a, there's a natural justice that comes around at some point.
23:16One of the things that also struck me about the Farage donation is, you know, regardless
23:21of why you stand on his links to crypto and this fellow Harburn is based in Thailand, is there
23:29are plenty of members of the commons who will have earned a hell of a lot of money before
23:34they came into parliament as well, certainly be millionaires themselves.
23:38And so there's something in, how do we feel about, you know, rich people coming to parliament
23:43versus, you know, having earned it or because they have family and private wealth or whatever,
23:48or having been gifted it. And it's, it all falls into quite an interesting and murky
23:53sphere and it, and it's a public perception sphere. And then the people who end up needing
23:59to expense things and declare things get a bit more pilloried because they do actually
24:05need this stuff.
24:06This is one of the things that I have quite strong views about and you and I don't agree
24:11on.
24:13I know it's so exciting to talk about fight of the century podcast where they do actually
24:17disagree sometimes. Um, but I think before we come to blows and decide that this is the
24:23last episode we ever do.
24:24I'm much, you can't pick on a smaller person. I'm smaller and also older.
24:28Very bony knuckles.
24:30But you've got fire. Um, I think it would be good if we did do a little bit of advice
24:35because we've, we've certainly covered the problems here. Um, but what would you be advising
24:41to any MP or indeed minister or actually the, perhaps the parliamentary standards commissioner
24:49or the electoral commission or a journalist reporting some of this stuff or indeed a member
24:55of the public? How we, how should we be receiving this?
24:58So I think it's really important to be totally crystal clear about the, not just for the independent
25:02lawyers, but for ourselves, line we drew right at the top of the episode. Peter Morrell has
25:08done something really unusual that is criminal that he's admitted to in a court and now he's
25:13been remanded in custody, which is kind of fraud on a scale, which is extraordinary.
25:17So that is a very, so keep on drawing those lines because it is actually really important
25:22that the rest of politics isn't contaminated by something like that because it's not normal.
25:28The second thing I'd say is one of the things you said really early on in this conversation
25:32was about the sniff test being the most important. And I used to always, in my boring advice I
25:37gave repeatedly and still give repeatedly is if you have to have a five sentence explanation
25:42as to why this thing is okay, you know, you've already stuffed it, frankly, don't spend taxpayers'
25:49money on things that you wouldn't be perfectly happy being on the front page of the Daily
25:53Mail having spent taxpayers' money on it. And that goes for like, and all money, there's
25:58no magic money here. All money is taxpayers' money if you are working in public life. So
26:03either you are foregoing some money from the taxpayer or you're literally spending their
26:07cash. And that means not just taxpayers' money in a sort of amorphous abstract way. I remember
26:13having this conversation with some of your, I'm going to use the word, colleagues very
26:17carefully. But in number 10 on the political advisory team, when their holidays were cancelled
26:23by Mr. Cummings, when Mr. Johnson became Prime Minister, and perfectly reasonably, and I would
26:29stand by this entirely, that if you are, if you have a holiday booked, and then something
26:34happens at work, and you can't get the money back, and you're forced to stay at work, then
26:39there is a reasonable scheme that where you would get your money back for a holiday. Of
26:43course, not like the most ridiculous holiday.
26:46Well, from memory, there were a few quite cheeky claims.
26:49Well, which were not paid, by the way, because there is a reasonableness test that you should
26:53apply. And I just would always say you ought to be imagining yourself forward to having to
26:58defend the decision you've just made. And if you have in your mind what a taxpayer is,
27:02you should think about an NHS nurse's taxes. That's whose money you're spending is somebody
27:07who is already working in the NHS. They're nurses who we love rightly to put on a pedestal.
27:15And it's those people's taxes that you are spending. So just don't do it.
27:20Yeah, and it's how these things sound. How absurd does it sound to charge people for gold wallpaper
27:26or Dyson fans or a little pendant necklace in the shape of the northern light? I think I have
27:33some slightly more practical advice too, which is slightly understandably, lots of politicians are
27:38just not on top of a lot of this. They'll keep the receipts or whatever for taxis. But when it
27:43comes
27:44to actually declaring it, they are rarely the person actually going through and writing it down
27:48themselves and making sure it's all sort of tabled properly. We talk about this quite a lot,
27:53but hiring the right team is so important. And I don't just mean the right chief of staff. I mean,
27:57everyone in your parliamentary office, everyone in the headquarters of your party, you need
28:03really good people who are quite forensic and a bit anal about this stuff, because that is ultimately
28:11how politicians have quite often been let down in the past is that the same sense of does this
28:17actually look okay to expense? Should we have a conversation about this? Am I doing it correctly?
28:22Do I know the exact details? All that really matters. And that's often what trips you up.
28:27I think the thing I'd say to that is also just because you can doesn't mean you should. So just
28:32because you can claim something and technically it's within the rules doesn't mean you should do it,
28:37which is going to sound contradictory to what I'm going to say next, which is, you know, don't claim
28:43for everything you technically can do. So therefore equal subsidize it yourself. And then our problem is
28:49that actually we don't pay MPs enough money.
28:55Controversial there, Helen, because just a quick reminder to everybody, MP salaries
29:00currently stands at £98,599. So they are...
29:06Just underneath the £100,000 tax threshold, you'll note.
29:10Isn't that nice?
29:11So weird.
29:11I mean, that has gone up a lot, even since you and I worked in government. I think it
29:16was the mid to late 80s when I was there five years ago. Does that sound about right?
29:21I think so. And look, I'm not for one second saying that is not a decent salary. Of course
29:26it is. What I'm saying is that I think one of the systemic problems we have is that it
29:32used to be the case that people who are working in SW1, so the geography really matters here,
29:38this London postcode, were able to afford a quite reasonable, like reasonable brackets,
29:45very nice standard of living on those salaries, was broadly commensurate with the sort of salary
29:50you'd get for another professional middle class job. So not kind of banker money or professional
29:56football of money, but a wage that meant that you could afford the trappings of a middle class
30:02lifestyle. Now, you can argue whether that is a good thing or not, and whether politicians
30:06should be somewhere else. However, my concern is what we've actually got now is we've got
30:12this absolute inability for anybody to put up the salaries of MPs and ministers. And I have had
30:20this argument and lost it resoundedly every single time I've tried. So, because…
30:27Well, it just looks terrible, doesn't it? For MPs to say, we're voting on our pay rise,
30:31and we're all unanimous. I mean, it's just impossible.
30:33I totally get that. But what we have instead now is a sort of soft and hidden corruption,
30:37which is, if you want to, partly because of what's happening to housing costs in central London,
30:43that if you want to live within commutable distance of SW1, and you want to be able to,
30:50devote the hours of your working life that you feel like you need to, and have a family,
30:57manage a house, do all of these things, it's almost impossible to do that and live the kind
31:02of normal-ish middle class lifestyle, unless you are heavily subsidised by either inherited wealth,
31:10previous London housing wealth, or a spouse who is earning loads more than you. And that's,
31:16I think, one of the things that we've seen because of all of these choices
31:19in the make-up of our political and governing classes is a lot more people where there is
31:24tonnes of kind of soft and hidden money behind, because of course you can get on more in your
31:29political party if you can afford to have people around for dinner, or these are all things that
31:33I don't actually do, I should point out. But you know what I mean? There is like a thing about,
31:38actually, if you can network, if you can afford to pay the bill, if you can afford to have people
31:41around your house, if you can afford all of these, all of these kind of soft, soft things,
31:46do you make a difference to your ability to get on in this world? And we are limiting the ability
31:52to get on to a particularly narrow number of people who have wealth that comes from somewhere
31:58else. And it's the hiddenness of the wealth that I don't like.
32:00I think that's fair. Certainly the kind of emotional intelligence bit, the soft power and
32:04politics that you need. But I guess one of my answers to that is we already subsidise alcohol
32:09in the Houses of Parliament so that MPs can do that.
32:12All right, Hannah.
32:13Well, I know. I mean, I'm not sure where I stand on the drinking in Parliament. And Hannah Spencer,
32:18the Green MP, has obviously got her views on that. But I do think the fact we do subsidise
32:24alcohol for members of Parliament, they already have this opportunity. We are creating,
32:28we have amazing dining rooms and we have the terrace. We've got these opportunities for them to
32:33invite people into the parliamentary estate and to try and bust them up that way. You're right,
32:38I've seen donor dinners and so forth. And sometimes you think, goodness, it's happening
32:44at that person's house. And then you realise this member of Parliament or minister has the
32:48most amazing house in Chelsea or Belgravia or something like that. And that is not the case
32:54for a lot of MPs who are on the train back and forth to Sheffield or flying up to Shetland
33:00or whatever it is. I guess, I mean, maybe I'm sort of outing myself as more as a socialist
33:06than I realised. But, you know, to your point that you're right, MP salaries have not risen
33:12with the sort of inflation of middle class salaries. So they're not on a par with GPs and solicitors
33:18and that kind of thing. But that is partly because a lot of those people are ridiculously
33:24well paid.
33:25So I think the thing that you see is people, and I appreciate this is like a really unpopular
33:32view in lots of ways, but I would much rather they're all paid more and then they are not
33:37allowed to do other work. And you have much stricter rules about what they can do afterwards.
33:43So that actually you're confident that your members of Parliament are serving without fear
33:46or favour. And, you know, don't get me started on the kind of soft corruption in the House
33:51of Lords as well.
33:52I do think the second jobs thing is a really valid point. There are some members of the
33:56House of Commons who are making hundreds of thousands of pounds a year because they're
34:01able to do separate legal work. They've got other careers spinning along very happily.
34:05There are some really impressive members who are medical staff who still do some nursing
34:10and doctor's shifts, which I think is really interesting.
34:14Totally.
34:14And there's a funny element of like, oh, well, is that good public service? And actually
34:19is some of it sort of evil moneymaking question here? But one of the things I am quite interested
34:25in, and people forget this when ministers lose their jobs or when they resign, is that extra
34:31ministerial salary makes a big difference too. It's quite a bit more, isn't it?
34:34It really does. And I'm not, to be clear, I'm not advocating for like spending more of taxpayers
34:39money on salaries. I would have far fewer people in general and pay them much better.
34:43Oh, yeah. I know from experience, you're very keen on that.
34:46Very keen on that.
34:47You like to cut the bill, raise the bar. I think that's Helen's slogan.
34:51Oh, my God. That's such a great issue. Always missing the political thing. Maybe I should
34:55go back and try these arguments again. The other thing is, I think we are just end up looking
34:59a bit like pedestrian as a country in some of these things because we're so minor league.
35:04I mean, maybe Peter Morrell has in Scotland created like more of a major league corruption scandal,
35:09but we do pay people less anyway than other countries do. When we do these scandals,
35:13they're quite small beer. I mean, totally take our gambling, our gambling versus what
35:20may or may not be going on in the US is a good example of that.
35:22Yes. So just I don't know if people remember this because it has been quite seismic, but
35:27it was caught up in the general election at the time. But some of Rishi Sunak's team and
35:32some people who worked in Conservative Party headquarters and indeed a couple of MPs
35:37placed bets on the date of the general election in 2024, knowing when it was going to be called
35:44for. So that is obviously illegal. That is, you know, insider trading, however you want
35:51to call it. And they only won 500 quid.
35:53Such small bets.
35:54Right. So it's like criminal record for 500 pounds. Just for comparison here, because the
35:59Americans, obviously, they like to supersize things. There are now some quite well documented
36:04cases from the White House where, you know, here's a great example. Just minutes before
36:10Trump announced the Iran war was largely over, which obviously caused oil prices to drop.
36:16Which is also not actually true.
36:18Not actually. So it's just the announcement, what he's going to say versus then what happens.
36:23There were massive bets traded on oil prices.
36:27What, for more than five, people made more than 500 pounds, clear.
36:30They're making in the millions. So obviously, the White House has strenuously denied all this.
36:35And they've actually said there may be traders simply highly skilled anticipating Trump's
36:40unpredictable interventions, which I kind of love. But, you know, that is, there are consistent
36:47little spikes before Trump opens his mouth to announce something and various commodities
36:51suddenly get traded really, really quickly. I mean, I'm not saying this is like the gold
36:56standard to aim for at all. But it's just amazing that we, you know, the things that stick in our
37:01minds are, like I said, the Duck House and the 500 quid betting and the Dyson Hoover and all the
37:08other bits and bobs that has come up in, well, the last few years.
37:12Yeah, we look small beer by comparison, without a doubt. I mean, the other thing I would say is,
37:16you know, my kind of yet another unpopular opinion, we're not even very good at insider trading properly
37:22in the government when it will be legitimate to do it. So one of the many frustrations that I used
37:26to have is, you know, when we're announcing a big scheme, like a transport scheme that massively
37:31inflates the land value of an area, why haven't we, the government, got ahead of ourselves,
37:37bought up the land and be the beneficiary of the, so I would do more, but I think insider trading
37:42for
37:42a good purpose, let's say. Well, legal disclaimer aside, I'm sure Peter Manesson was very good at
37:47that when he was working for the Brown government. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Remember
37:52to follow the show on your podcast player and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed it.
37:56Please do email us with feedback and any questions. We are intheroomatindependent.co.uk.
38:03And if you're listening on Spotify, you can leave lovely little comments underneath.
38:06Thank you. Thank you, callers. And you can keep up to date with the best bits of the pod
38:10on Instagram at intheroom.pod. This podcast is part of the Independent Podcast Network
38:15and produced in association with Next Chapter Studios. The executive producers today were
38:20Rod Adahali, Carrie Rose and the producer is Sam Durham. And a special mention to content editor
38:25Maya Anushka, video editor Vali Raza and videographer Dan Faber. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
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