Ed Miliband has just sent me[1] an email in which he said
It’s time to stop MPs taking second jobs once and for all. Your MP should be working solely in the interests of you and your community.
and then asked me to share this image on Facebook:
Now, I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that there’s a big difference between banning all second jobs, and banning paid directorships and consultancies. So, what is it that Ed is actually planning to ban?
Well, I couldn’t find any reference to it on Labour’s own website, but the Commons has just defeated an attempt by Labour to ban paid directorships and consultancies, so I think we can assume that the infographic, rather than Ed’s original comment, is canonical.
But then, why only paid directorships and consultancies? Why not all second jobs, and why start by giving the impression that it is all second jobs?
Well, the answer is actually fairly obvious. And not in the slightest bit surprising.
If you look at the current list of Members’ Interests on the Commons website, those who have paid directorships and/or consultancies are overwhelmingly likely to be Conservative MPs. Not that the Tories are more likely to have outside sources of income than Labour or the Lib Dems, it’s just that they’re more likely to earn it as directors or consultants. Unlike, for example, Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt, who is a university lecturer. Or former PM Gordon Brown, who has an intriguingly titled role as “Distinguished Global Leader in Residence at New York University”. Or the whole host of Labour MPs who are sponsored by unions.
The simple fact is that Ed Miliband doesn’t want to ban MPs from having second jobs. He just wants to ban them from having the type of jobs more likely to be done by Conservatives, while permitting those done by Labour MPs.
Apart from the sheer hypocrisy and self-serving nature of this, it also means that when Ed says
It’s time to stop MPs taking second jobs once and for all. Your MP should be working solely in the interests of you and your community.
he’s engaging in what, in parliamentary terms, is referred to as being economical with the truth. Or, to you and me, a lie. It’s as simple as that.
[1] He didn’t just send it to me, of course. But it did have my name in it, so I’m entitled to consider it addressed to me.