NAME AND SHAME: Extensive scrutiny of the list of members’ interests has thrown up an anomaly. There appears to be a Conservative MP who does not have a second job.
LCD Views checked out not just the Official Register, but the lesser known Complete Register which goes into a lot more detail. This is kept jealously by Tory Central HQ, and its purpose is to make sure the gravy train stays on the rails. Occasionally though it gets leaked, genuinely accidentally for once, by careless MPs who share it on their WhatsApp groups and unsecure email accounts.
One name that appears on neither list is Finn Gersin-Manypies, Tory MP for the Rotten Borough of Morecash-in-the-Bank. Gersin-Manypies has a poor attendance record, although he has consistently voted for measures designed to enrich himself and to divert responsibility elsewhere.
This is the typical profile of an MP who treats government as a hobby, while raking it in big time from more lucrative employment. One thinks of Boris Johnson, never too busy running the country to pose for another photo-op, or bang out another fifteen hundred words of purest guff for The Daily Telegraph. Or Geoffrey Cox, pocketing hundreds of thousands of pounds for speaking impressively in Court and only attending Parliament on his days off (allegedly).
You think of the disgraced Owen Paterson, with his “second” jobs being as his employer’s inside agent. And there are many more such humdrum examples.
But what does Gersin-Manypies actually get up to when not MP-ing? Nobody really knows, and no Tory MP admits to knowing him. Nor does Morecash-in-the-Bank appear on any map. But his voting record is identical to over 100 other, equally anonymous MPs.
Nobody seems to know who is wielding this incredibly block vote, which enables the Tories to ram through any piece of legislation they like. Nobody seems to know where the salaries go to, either.
“I consider the matter closed,” said the PM in response to our questions. “Now is not the time, nor will it ever be.”