At least this is one scrap of heart-warming news.
This week I will be giving evidence in Brussels at an Inquiry into the revolving door for top politicians.
Regular readers will know that I have raged against the corrupting influence of future job prospects for those who hold high office. Ministers, Generals, top Civil Servants pick up lucrative retirement jobs, often in areas where they once made key decisions. Were they influenced in office by the possibility of a retirement hacienda in Spain?
My Select Committee expressed worry about the situation here. Now there is concern about the future jobs taken by European Commissioners. Luckily for me there is one glorious exception to the money grabbing.
Gordon Brown is donating his post-PM earnings to charity and campaigning on issues he's always held dear including health, education and employment.
The previous PMs all cleaned up their earning. To his credit Tony Blair gave the earning from his autobiography o charity. Maggie Thatcher's made a mint out of the tobacco industry and John Major is a big earner in the US equity market.
GORDON Brown has raked in more than £250,000 since standing down as PM – but the cash will go to charity. He has made nearly £180,000 from speaking and lecturing engagements and a further £78,000 for his book on the world economic crisis. It has all gone to the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown, set up to manage his charity and community work.
Gordon earned £71,544 as Distinguished Global Leader in Residence at New York University. He got £62,181 for a speech in Lagos, Nigeria, and £37,047 for a two-and-a-half hour talk in New Delhi, India. Harvard university paid him nearly £30,000 for accommodation and travel costs for his role as a Visiting Fellow while his book, Beyond the Crash, earned him a £78,289 advance.
With luck, my visit to Brussels might convince some that not all politicians are in for the money.
Mean Government
The cuts have hardly started yet, but the loathing of the public is already rising.
No libraries have closed, no forests sold, no child denied an education chance, no surgery privatised, but the dread of the mean cuts looms over every family of average or low income. The lack of any empathy from a cabinet of millionaires will become more marked. Their confidence is slipping. The wrong sort of snow caused the economy to dip here, they claim, while a great deal more snow in the US improved their economy.
Tomorrow they will dust down their failed policy of health commissioning. Last time a voluntary scheme for 15% of the NHS flopped. Now they are foolishly trying a compulsory scheme for 80%. It cannot work.
It will end in tears.
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