Politicians who would be nonentities if they had never entered parliament (and some remain so) turn their status at Westminster to financial advantage. Tory backbenchers compete to collect the most "consultancies", though the businesses concerned would not be dishing out their dosh to anyone who wasn't an MP. He earned a lot but he spent even more and was often in dire straits. He was given a helping hand by millionaires such as Sir Abe Bailey, Bernard Baruch and Sir Henry Strakosch who took over his shares at their original value when Churchill lost a small fortune on the US stock market in 1938. And Churchill was paid such breathtaking sums by the Daily Mail - equivalent now to £10,000 or more a column - as to suggest a disturbingly dependent relationship with Viscount Rothermere.Although no politician would behave like Gladstone, Salisbury or Churchill today, we have a different kind of problem. Those three would have been outstanding personalities even if they had never sat in parliament; Gladstone and Salisbury were rich men who didn't need political careers to grow richer, while Churchill would always have earned a healthy living as a writer Today we see another ominous tendency. Salisbury reversed this prohibition, which became permanent only after his death.And Churchill had the gaudiest financial life of all, which would not survive media scrutiny now.
Salisbury invested heavily in businesses whose fortunes were plainly affected by his government's policy. Politicians' shareholdings were a private matter, and cabinet ministers were not required to give updirectorships until 1892. This was shortly after the prime minister had bought a very large quantity of Egyptian Tribute loan stock, which increased by nearly a third in value following the annexation: on the face of it, "a clear case of improper financial interest", as Roy Jenkins says in his biography. Looking back presents some remarkable spectacles: it's not so much the outright crooks who have always flitted in and out of Parliament that astonish, it is the great prime ministers, too.In 1882 Gladstone's government bombarded Alexandria and made Egypt a British protectorate.
We are not obsessed with hank, or even in pank, at this newspaper. We simply observe that Sven Goran Eriksson, the England football team manager, is unmarried. Or, rather, as the ethics of relationships have become more complicated, there are no children involved. Unfortunately, that only prompts the question: involved in what? At which point we go on to observe that our national obsession with the soap opera of the private lives of public figures, often scripted, directed and produced by Max Clifford, is regarded as a form of collective psychosis in many other European countries. Nevertheless, even after last week's dismal 4-1 loss to Denmark, we probably have to observe that it is all part of a very English pantomime..
