By PETER MCKAY Neil Kinnock and his wife Glenys have amassed six publicly- funded pensions between them, which are worth some £185,000 a year, it's reported. Good luck to them, some will say. But the Kinnocks are an interesting study. They began as Left-wingers who sought to abolish the House of Lords. Now they're in the Lords. They were once anti-Common Market, but have since enjoyed careers in Europe - he as a commissioner, she as an MEP and now as Gordon Brown's new Europe Minister. Taking us for a ride: Neil and Glenys Kinnock are worth a massive £185,000 a year Apart from their salaries, both Kinnocks have enjoyed generous expenses. They each claimed a housing allowance, although they shared the same property. It's estimated they have collected about £12million in pay and allowances. They've managed to employ - at public expense - both their son and their daughter. Having failed as Labour leader to defeat the Tories, Neil Kinnock's consolation prize was a position in Europe, although he'd voted against joining the Common Market in 1975. Glenys was compensated, too, by being put on Labour's Member of the European Parliament list. Now Neil Kinnock is a Labour elder statesman in the Lords. He argued forcibly in Gordon Brown's favour when the Prime Minister sought support at a party meeting last week. He could scarcily do otherwise when his wife was about to join Brown's Government as Minister for Europe. Politicians prefer to portray themselves as public servants, forsaking the usual fruits of wordly success. We don't believe this line any more - especially after the MPs' expenses scandal. We think they're in it for themselves. Neil and Glenys Kinnock (he's 67, she's 64) aren't the only political couple to have enjoyed life on the public payroll, both here and in Europe. But their political trajectory seems particularly cynical and self-serving. How will Neil explain to old friends who wanted (like him) to abolish the Lords why he and Glenys (soon to be ennobled) both became peers? How do they explain their privileged lives to others with whom they debated the need for fairness? The Kinnocks are the beneficiaries of the spoils system shared by major political parties. In or out of power, there is access to the public trough, from modestly rewarded quango jobs to the House of Lords. Leaders set the standards by which those below them live. Our most recent Downing Street retiree, Tony Blair, makes millions giving speeches and advising American banks, while at the same time justifying huge expenses by taking on the curiously opaque job of Middle East envoy for the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia. He's now a rich man. Twice rejected by voters at general elections when he led Labour, Neil Kinnock - as Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty - now props up the zombie administration of Gordon Brown. Brussels queen Glenys Kinnock becomes Minister for Europe - and a peeress in her own right - despite the fact that the Euro elections demonstrated a deepening distrust of the European Union. Don't politicians always feather their own nests? Not always. America's most revered president, Abraham Lincoln, had planned a modest retirement in Illinois at the time of his assassination. It's said of President Charles de Gaulle that - despite his grand manner - he retired no richer than when he entered politics as an army officer. How well they did for themselves is what most people will remember of the Kinnocks. Not their political passion, not the battles won and lost; only how they ended up as lord and lady, financially insulated for life and backing the doomed Government of Gordon Brown. What was the old Left-wing ditty? 'The working class can kiss my **** / I've got the foreman's job at last.' Didn't the Kinnocks do well...(at taking us all for a ride)
Last updated at 12:14 AM on 15th June 2009
Monday, 15 June 2009
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