A Commons sleaze investigation into shadow minister Jess Philips has concluded she breached the House’s Register of Interest rules multiple times with late registrations of payments in her capacity as an author, columnist and public speaker, beyond the 28-day deadline. She also “incorrectly registered accommodation provided by Google as hospitality rather than earnings.” No doubt if this were a Tory minister Labour would by demanding a resignation…
The Standards Commissioner has dictated that the next register of interests update should include all Phillips’ relevant entries in bold, however the sheer number of breaches meant the commissioner made the rare decision to call Phillips in to meet the Registrar “to discuss her obligations within the Rules and Guide to the Rules”, which Jess did on 11 May this month. A bollocking in other words…
In summary, the sleaze commissioner found Philips to have breached Paragraph 14 of the Code by:
- Failing to register 17 of your financial interests within the 28-day deadline set by the House
- Failing to register a payment for appearing as a guest on an episode of “Have I Got News for You” in May 2019
- Incorrectly registering accommodation provided to you following an event by Google and an event by GQ as hospitality rather than income.
Philips says she’s “truly sorry” for the mistakes, which “were without question mine and those mistakes breached the rules”.
Despite the ongoing sleaze row, MPs continue to rake in thousands of pounds from second jobs. This month Guido went through the register of interests and totted up all the money MPs are making through their side hustles…
This month alone, MPs have declared a combined £274,109 on top of their generous £81,932 salaries. Highlights include:
- Sir Geoffrey Cox receiving £54,000 for legal work carried out in August.
- Keir “No Second Jobs” Starmer earning £135.78 in book royalties.
- David Lammy taking £3,895 this month for speaking events. Earlier this week, Guido revealed Lammy has earned £150,000 since 2010 on articles and speaking gigs.
- Jess Phillips earning £2,240 from Independent articles.
- Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross declaring £6,728 for football referee work from November 2020 to January this year. He was forced to apologise for previously failing to declare his salary…
- Sir William Cash earning £31,800 working as a solicitor for William Cash & Co.
- Nus Ghani receiving £60,000 per year for working just 7 hours a month as the non-executive Chairman of the Belfast Consortium Supervisory Board.
This comes as Boris Johnson backs a ban on some second jobs, though it’s not likely many of the above would be affected by his watered down proposals. Despite the scandal, MPs are still raking in the dough…
This morning, Labour Women’s Network tweeted an obviously fake photo of NBA players wearing “lace collars to honour Ruth Bader Ginsberg”, saying that is “how you be a good ally 😍“. Jess Phillips lapped it up, claiming she was “shedding a happy tear at this. Boom!”.
She was so moved, in fact, she even uploaded the obvious edit – originally seeing the NBA players in Black Lives Matter shirts – to her Instagram (yet to be deleted). And Guido thought Labour were pretty strait-laced about rejecting fake news…
