The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[HanoiVillan]

The best thing about this tweet is the way it uses the phrase 'a new trade and investment ship' as if that's a perfectly normal and sensible thing to have:

 

[chrisp65]

At what point in the MoD ship design process do we tip them off about aircraft and zoom?

 

[bickster]

31 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The best thing about this tweet is the way it uses the phrase 'a new trade and investment ship' as if that's a perfectly normal and sensible thing to have:

 

I wonder if the Queen will react the same way this time?

Quote

In January 1997, the government committed itself to replacing the Royal Yacht if reelected.[10] The timing of the announcement, close to a general election, was controversial; The Guardian Weekly called it "part of a populist appeal to wavering Tory voters in the run-up to the general election" and reported that the Queen was "furious" that the Royal Family was "dragged into the centre of the election campaign, just as it is fighting to restore its public image."[11] Sir Edward Heath publicly objected to the government's handling of the issue, stating "The Conservative Party above all must be an honourable party. And I don't believe the actions that have been taken are honourable ones and should never have been taken in this way."[12]

Wiki

However....

Quote

Proposals for the construction of a new royal yacht, perhaps financed through a loan or by the Queen's own funds, have made little headway. In December 2019 it was reported that the late Sir Donald Gosling donated £50 million in his will to pay for it.[17]

 

[HanoiVillan]

The best thing that could happen is it could never happen.

[ml1dch]

Keep them coming. A new one every day for the next three years or so would be good.

 

 

[Panto_Villan]

20 hours ago, Genie said:

I assume Boris is only in it it feather his nest long term. Has he managed to get enough ground work done so that he has a few good years of raking it in? 
At that point he will step aside without too much resistance. 

Apparently becoming PM screwed him financially though. He was earning big money from his newspaper columns and the occasional books he published, none of which he can do in office. And as he has 7 (?) kids to pay for at expensive schools, plus a divorce, rumours are that he's pretty short of money these days. He was earning £1m+ before, and now he's just on £200k a year.

(No verified source on that but those rumours certainly seem plausible to me.)

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Apparently becoming PM screwed him financially though. He was earning big money from his newspaper columns and the occasional books he published, none of which he can do in office. And as he has 7 (?) kids to pay for at expensive schools, plus a divorce, rumours are that he's pretty short of money these days. He was earning £1m+ before, and now he's just on £200k a year.

(No verified source on that but those rumours certainly seem plausible to me.)

You'd think he might have considered that possibility before he put himself up for the job... actually no, the man has never shown any signs of forward thinking ever.

[Genie]

21 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Apparently becoming PM screwed him financially though. He was earning big money from his newspaper columns and the occasional books he published, none of which he can do in office. And as he has 7 (?) kids to pay for at expensive schools, plus a divorce, rumours are that he's pretty short of money these days. He was earning £1m+ before, and now he's just on £200k a year.

(No verified source on that but those rumours certainly seem plausible to me.)

I’m sure it’s purely short term “pain”. He’ll be appointed to all kind of boards, newspapers, working groups, book deals and motivational speeches as soon as he’s out of Downing Street. It’s the unwritten perks of the job.

[Panto_Villan]

33 minutes ago, bickster said:

You'd think he might have considered that possibility before he put himself up for the job... actually no, the man has never shown any signs of forward thinking ever.

It's ego above all else as far as I'm concerned. You've got to wonder what comes next after he's booted out of office.

[Panto_Villan]

5 minutes ago, Genie said:

I’m sure it’s purely short term “pain”. He’ll be appointed to all kind of boards, newspapers, working groups, book deals and motivational speeches as soon as he’s out of Downing Street. It’s the unwritten perks of the job.

True. I'm sure his income will go up again afterwards. I think he's in an unusual position that he was a well known media figure beforehand though, so I doubt he'll get the same boost as a lesser known PM would.

And as the problems Cameron is now having show, I'm not sure it's quite as easy to cash in on being PM as it might first appear.

Not that he'll ever be starving of course.

[HanoiVillan]

48 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

True. I'm sure his income will go up again afterwards. I think he's in an unusual position that he was a well known media figure beforehand though, so I doubt he'll get the same boost as a lesser known PM would.

And as the problems Cameron is now having show, I'm not sure it's quite as easy to cash in on being PM as it might first appear.

Not that he'll ever be starving of course.

On the contrary, it's extremely easy. People are falling over themselves to give you huge sums of money for after-dinner speeches, and getting non-executive directorships and so forth requires no effort at all. Cameron's 'mistake' is doing too much for his friend, but even then the only reason we know about it is that his mate's big finance company collapsed, which is not a particularly common concern.

[Swerbs]

It seems The Times have turned as well.

Boris Johnson ‘said he would let Covid rip’ in lockdown row

[Panto_Villan]

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

On the contrary, it's extremely easy. People are falling over themselves to give you huge sums of money for after-dinner speeches, and getting non-executive directorships and so forth requires no effort at all. Cameron's 'mistake' is doing too much for his friend, but even then the only reason we know about it is that his mate's big finance company collapsed, which is not a particularly common concern.

What's this based on though? Clearly not Cameron, so Theresa May? Gordon Brown? John Major? It's only Tony Blair who has made large amounts of money after leaving the PM's office, and he's always been a bit of a political anomaly. I doubt the others are making more than a million a year.

Sure, it's a big thing in the US but I can't think of many clear examples of it happening here.

[ml1dch]

2 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

What's this based on though? Clearly not Cameron, so Theresa May? Gordon Brown? John Major? It's only Tony Blair who has made large amounts of money after leaving the PM's office, and he's always been a bit of a political anomaly. I doubt the others are making more than a million a year.

Sure, it's a big thing in the US but I can't think of many clear examples of it happening here.

 

May and Cameron get around £100,000 per speech, and both make in the region of a £1m per year from speaking engagements (on top of any other money they might get). Given an MP's salary is  £82k, I think that a 15-fold increase on that just for making a dozen speeches is fair to describe as "cashing in".

[lapal_fan]

5 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

It's ego above all else as far as I'm concerned. You've got to wonder what comes next after he's booted out of office.

President... OF.THE.WORLD. 

[Panto_Villan]

33 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

 

May and Cameron get around £100,000 per speech, and both make in the region of a £1m per year from speaking engagements (on top of any other money they might get). Given an MP's salary is  £82k, I think that a 15-fold increase on that just for making a dozen speeches is fair to describe as "cashing in".

Huh, seems you're right. I stand corrected.

[HanoiVillan]

35 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

What's this based on though? Clearly not Cameron, so Theresa May? Gordon Brown? John Major? It's only Tony Blair who has made large amounts of money after leaving the PM's office, and he's always been a bit of a political anomaly. I doubt the others are making more than a million a year.

Sure, it's a big thing in the US but I can't think of many clear examples of it happening here.

 

28 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

 

May and Cameron get around £100,000 per speech, and both make in the region of a £1m per year from speaking engagements (on top of any other money they might get). Given an MP's salary is  £82k, I think that a 15-fold increase on that just for making a dozen speeches is fair to describe as "cashing in".

To expand on the above, May, Cameron, Brown and Blair are all 'on the circuit' courtesy of the Washington Speakers Bureau, who are the outfit who represent the ultra-expensive after-dinner speaker market.

Here are some of the figures from May's post-number-10 career so far (just the speaking part):

Life beyond Number 10: Theresa May’s lucrative career on the speech circuit

'[..]Writing in the Daily Mail, Sebastian Shakespeare reports that May has recently been paid over £100,000 for three different addresses, only two of which she has actually delivered yet. The latest is an appearance for World 50 Inc, billed as ‘a private community for senior-most executives from globally respected organisations to intimately share ideas, solutions and collaborative discovery free from press, competition and solicitation.’ Shakespeare dubs the collective ‘ultra-exclusive’, made up of the ‘mega-rich’.

The parliamentary register of MPs’ financial interests reportedly reveals that May has amassed £1.1 million since December 2019. Some of her speeches have been conducted remotely over video – meaning the former PM hasn’t even had to commute for such lucrative engagements.

Back in October last year, it was reported that May earned £136,000 in September for delivering a speech in Seoul on global responses to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Times, reaching a total talks profit to more than £1 million means that she has surpassed the current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, for after-dinner earning power. Before becoming PM in July 2019, Mr Johnson was paid £123,000 to fly to India and address a publishing company in the New Delhi quarter of the city.

Details released in the register of members’ financial interests reveal that Mrs May is in demand from big banks and American universities for insights into her time in power. Earning an average of £110,000 per talk, she has delivered speeches in Zurich, Atlanta, Dubai and San Antonio.

[...]

May’s decision to capitalise on her experience of ruling the country follows in the footsteps of her predecessors David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. All four former-PMs, including May, joined the prestigious Washington Speakers Bureau that offers a high-paying second career on the international speaking circuit. Mrs May was reportedly paid £115,000 each for four speeches last year in America and according to the Times, was paid £160,000 in April in advance for two speeches to the investment bank JP Morgan that had to be postponed.'

from: https://www.tatler.com/article/theresa-may-earning-100000-a-speech-on-lecture-circuit

Nick Clegg reportedly gets a 7-figure salary from Facebook, and George Osborne is a partner at an investment bank that has paid out literally hundreds of millions in executive bonuses in the last 6 years, so the likes of May and Cameron are actually failing to make bank (I've seen some suggestion that the reason Cameron was so involved with Greensill was that his deal was options worth 1% of the value of the company, which obviously looked real good until not very long ago, and that he was partly embarrassed by how little he was earning compared to his peers).

[Sam-AVFC]

I'm struggling to see £100k of value in a speech given by any ex pm. It must come down to the lobbying opportunity at the post event drinks reception. 

[HanoiVillan]

4 hours ago, Sam-AVFC said:

I'm struggling to see £100k of value in a speech given by any ex pm. It must come down to the lobbying opportunity at the post event drinks reception. 

I have been trying to find information on how these events are typically structured, but I don't really know. I imagine the lobbying opportunity is important, and I also imagine there's a lot of potential for it to be re-payment for favours done while in office (which might explain how a company could be relaxed about paying £160k for a speech that hasn't happened).

However, I guess the maths of it makes some sense: if you've got 150 people in a room paying an average of £3k each, thats £450k, which gives plenty of room for a £100k+ speakers fee plus extravagant hosting and catering and still a large profit margin for the organisers.

[bickster]

31 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I have been trying to find information on how these events are typically structured, but I don't really know. I imagine the lobbying opportunity is important, and I also imagine there's a lot of potential for it to be re-payment for favours done while in office (which might explain how a company could be relaxed about paying £160k for a speech that hasn't happened).

However, I guess the maths of it makes some sense: if you've got 150 people in a room paying an average of £3k each, thats £450k, which gives plenty of room for a £100k+ speakers fee plus extravagant hosting and catering and still a large profit margin for the organisers.

Thats looking at it like a traditional gig

A lot of the time the Speaker is often really the loss leader, they are there to attract the people (as part of the package). Their company's are paying so its just a jolly, the people that turn up are themthelves the point of the event, they are the networking / sales opportunity to themselves and the organisers

Think of it as a sort of symbiotic parasitic turd on turd festival