Why do such stupid Tory MPs think their insight is worth thousands?

The former Health Secretary has been caught in an undercover sting by campaign group Led by Donkeys, agreeing to work for a fake South Korean firm for a £10k daily rate.

He wasn’t the only one. The former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng also agreed to act as consultant for the fake firm, saying he “wasn’t looking for a king’s ransom” but wouldn’t work for anything less than 10k per month.

The Chairman of the 1922 committee of Conservative MPs, Sir Graham Brady, told the undercover reporter that a rate of £6k per day “feels about right” while making it clear that he couldn’t advocate on behalf on the interests of the company and the payment would be on MPs declared register of interests.

It is instructive to note how quick these MPs were to believe that there was nothing amiss in being offered such vast sums for their “expertise”.

It gives an insight into both the terrifying levels of self-belief among senior Tory MPs and how normal an approach like this must be from a foreign business to our members of parliament.

The MPs targeted in the sting were sent an email from a fake investment firm, Hanseong Consulting, saying it was looking for individuals for an “international advisory board” to “help our clients navigate the shifting political, regulatory and legislative frameworks” in the UK and across Europe.

The website was rudimentary and MPs clearly didn’t do much digging about the background or history of the fake company before agreeing to the meeting with the undercover reporter, otherwise they would have easily spotted it was a scam.

I’ve done deeper background checks on potential Tinder dates than these idiots do on what foreign businesses they sell themselves to.

There is a clear mismatch between the demonstrable idiocy of MPs being so easily lured into a trap by undercover reporters and those same MPs also believing that access to their pollical nous is worth thousands of pounds per day.

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At this point, I should probably give a rundown of the litany of lobbying, cash-for-access and second job scandals of members of parliament in recent years, just so we’re all up to speed on how monumentally stupid the MPs snared by the Led by Donkeys sting are.

But we’d be here all day and this column would end up resembling the Wikipedia page for examples of the phrase “they’re at it”.

Suffice to say, recent evidence has shown that we are being ruled by a party of greedy and self-serving so-and-sos.

MPs earn £84k per year. Even leaving aside the vast wealth that many of them have accrued before entering parliament, that’s a hefty sum, is it not? Am I going mad here?

Why are so many of them flaunting their wares to entice the interest of outside businesses and firms? Why are they selling their souls for more, more, more?

If I earned £84k a year I wouldn’t do one single minute of work to make extra on top. I’d be kicking back on a comfy chair, with the central heating on full blast, eating toast spread with a £6 tub of Lurpak, like a normal person would in such circumstances.

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While the Led by Donkeys video might be excruciatingly embarrassing for the MPs involved – and a jaw-dropping watch for members of the public currently struggling with the cost of living crisis – nothing shown in it goes against parliamentary rules.

Our MPs are perfectly entitled to hawk their services to the highest bidder, providing they declare the payments and don’t fall foul of the wishy-washy, loophole-ridden rules around lobbying.

One of the arguments for letting our elected representatives continue to fill their coffers on shady “consultancy” jobs is that banning the practice would make the “best and the brightest” talent think twice before entering public service.

The horror of it.

Imagine a world without Matt Hancock MP, who broke his own Covid rules to dry-hump his mistress in the office.

Or one without Kwasi Kwarteng MP, the man who tanked the economy and was forced to resign after just 38 days in post, making him the shortest-serving chancellor ever, excluding the one who died while in office.

How would our democracy cope without the unrivalled insight and expertise of the Tory lads on the take?

Without the opportunity to amass additional fortunes on top of their MPs salary, we’d end up attracting the kind of people who are perfectly happy to somehow survive on £84k a year.

The kind of people who, when offered £10k per day from a foreign business nobody has ever heard of, think: “hold on a wee minute here, this doesn’t seem quite right”, instead of holding out their sweaty palm and asking when the first board meeting is.