Labour’s love affair with the City is sealed with big money. Ex-City minister Lord Myners has accepted a City post, as chairman of Autonomous Research, a stock analysis business. He is also tipped to chair Justice, the ironically named cash shell that hopes to shake up Britain’s financial services with a £1 billion to £5 billion takeover.
Lord Mandelson has an advisory role at Lazard, at £200,000 a year for two days a month. Former Brown aide Baroness Shriti Vadera has non-executive roles at BHP Billiton and AstraZeneca.
Former health secretary Patricia Hewitt has advisory roles at Alliance Boots and BUPA. She will also become the “special adviser” to Cinven, one of the world’s biggest private equity companies, which last year paid £1.4 billion for BUPA’s 25 private hospitals. While Health Secretary, she championed the NHS’s use of private facilities to treat patients, carry out operations and reduce waiting lists. She is expected to get more than £100,000 for the posts. In 2009, she got £159,575 on top of her MP’s pay in the previous 12 months. She was paid up to £12,500 a month as a senior independent director for BT, and an undisclosed amount from city bankers Barclays Capital.
Former Defence Minister Adam Ingram got £159,800 last year from a chairmanship, a director’s job and other paying consultancies.
Former education secretary Ruth Kelly, who also played a key role in implementing Brown’s useless financial regulatory system, now leads HSBC’s strategy unit – a £200,000-a-year job in the City – less than two years after she quit the Cabinet to “spend more time with her family”.