Alex Sampson, Plymouth Socialist Party
Ex-prime ministers have claimed nearly ten million pounds of public money to run their private offices, information released this week has shown. Former prime ministers are entitled to claim up to £115,000 a year for life to assist in remaining in public life (the Public Duties Cost Allowance or PDCA), but with the chaotic revolving door of prime ministers we witnessed over the last five years, the bill that the public are left with is huge, with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and John Major alone having claimed over a million pounds each in the last decade. How can such payments possibly be justified?
There are concerns about ex-prime ministers using their position while in power to make contacts that benefit themselves, rather than the public. Liz Truss, for example, as of 2024 figures, claimed £124,642 – a staggering £2,500 for each of her disastrous 49 days in office. She has been seen most publicly out trying to flog her book on tours of America.
David Cameron infamously became a lobbyist for financier Lex Greensill, reputedly making around £3.3 million thanks to his government links and access to the houses of parliament.
Recently leaked documents from Boris Johnson’s office published in the Guardian have raised questions about his use of public funds to staff his office. Johnson gives speeches around the world for which he is paid millions. The files also expose the links he still retains with Prince Mohammed bin Salman – who the CIA says ordered the appalling murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi – and other Middle Eastern billionaires. Links that he made while in office, as the letters published in the Guardian appear to show, have been used to further Johnson’s business interests.
Johnson, of course, suggests that there has been no impropriety in his use of the allowance, but with his history of scandals in office and the number of jobs he has lost through lying, we have to wonder if he even understands the word ‘ethics’, even if it was written in Latin. What is certain is that Johnson lives on a completely different planet to working-class people. While we struggle to get by, he jets around the world paid money most of us could only dream of while rubbing shoulders with big business and state leaders.
These bloated, lifelong payments are disgraceful when successive governments have told us that there is no money to pay for necessary services for the working class. They prioritise handouts to millionaires over public services time and time again. Let’s clear this rotten system out!
