Speaking to the Financial Times recently, parliamentary standards chief Daniel Greenberg defended MPs against their “undeserved reputation” for self-enrichment. They are not “fat cats”, the Westminster watchdog stated, but “very thin cats”.
The facts tell a different story. So far this year, MPs have collectively ‘earned’ over £10 million from second jobs and side-hustles. This is on top of their tidy £87,000 annual salaries.
Particularly shameful is ‘Sir’ Geoffrey Cox, who rakes in £400,000 each year moonlighting for an international law firm.
And of course there’s ex-PM Boris Johnson, who spent his final months as an MP jetting around the globe, amassing almost £5 million – at a rate of £21,000 an hour! – from speeches and book advances.
To make matters worse, MPs infamously charge taxpayers extortionate amounts for their expenses.
This shameless pilfering of the public purse was exposed in 2009. Amongst the most egregious examples at that time was Tory MP Douglas Hogg, who demanded £2,200 for the cleaning of his manor’s moat.
But Parliament’s occupants have returned to their old thieving ways since. In 2020, MPs’ expense claims amounted to £132.5 million.
This included two parliamentary ‘representatives’ billing the nation for their £100 Twitter ‘Blue’ memberships. One Starmer ally, meanwhile, requested £3,206 for ‘new blinds’.
The defence of these odious individuals by Westminster’s ethics tsar is a sick joke. They are fat cats – the lot of them!
We expect nothing less from these establishment politicians, however. They are the paid servants of the bankers and bosses.
We should take a revolutionary lesson from Oliver Cromwell. When clearing the House of Commons of its reprobates and swindlers, the New Model Army commander boldly proclaimed: “Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would sell your country for a mess of pottage!”
Just like the scoundrels infesting Parliament in Cromwell’s era, today’s MPs are not “thin cats” but parasites, feathering their nests while ordinary families freeze in mouldy homes.
We say: Join us in the fight for genuine democracy – a workers’ democracy, free from privilege, corruption, and careerism. Join the communists!
