Under intense scrutiny, William Hague finally admits he is - and was - crap.
BBC2 DAILY POLITICS
Wednesday, 09 May 2007
Speakers:
Andrew Neil
William Hague
Yvette Cooper
AN:
William Hague, you could give the Prime Minister some advice to what to do next, who knows he may even earn more money than you have since you stood down?
WH:
I think he could easily.
AN:
You’ve done pretty well. Around a million quid so far?
WH:
He will outstrip a mere former leader of the opposition by a very long distance in a very short time. I think on the American lecture circuit, I’m sure he has all that in mind.
AN:
Will he get more than your average of £15,000 a speech?
WH:
Oh he’ll get much more than that, yep. Much more than that. When he goes to the United States he will have a couple of hundred thousand dollar fee, I would think.
AN:
How do you find time to earn all this money and be shadow leader of…shadow foreign secretary?
WH:
Actually I don’t now and I’ve taken a sort of 60% or 70% pay cut to be the shadow foreign secretary…
AN:
What, from a million?
WH:
Yeah.
AN:
So that’s only brought you down to under a half a million…
WH:
Which to someone like you would be really terrible.
AN:
Yeah but I’m not an elected politician.
WH:
No no but I’ve taken it down hugely and now I do about one speech a month on the corporate circuit. Tony Blair will be able to do a lot more than that.
AN:
But your still an adviser to Terra Firma Capital, which is a private equity group…
WH:
[Nods]
AN:
And er and adviser to JCB, that pays a few bob as well. I mean there’s been as you know murmurs in the Conservative Party that you are not doing you’re job as foreign secretary properly…shadow foreign secretary, while having to do all this. What do you say to them?
WH:
I haven’t heard any of those murmurs myself because I think I put in more hours now for the Conservative Party than I did even when I was the leader…
AN:
Really?
YC:
What did you do when you were leader?
AN:
That’s why he lost by a landslide!
WH:
That’s how busy it is now and if I want to make the odd speech in the time…some people may watch television, some people may play golf. If I want to go out to give an afternoon speech, that’s my business and not theirs.
editor[at]recessmonkey.com
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Thats right - what a man does in his free time is his own business - literally. The truth is the Tories are, always have been, and always will be, motivated more by lining their own pockets and enjoying their Bollinger than they are by serving the people they are elected to represent. Yvette Cooper seems to have got off lightly on this token; many in her own CLP question how much consideration she’ll give to her loyal constituents when Gordon calls….
The Force said this on May 9th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Mauled???? Where?
AA said this on May 9th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
We have a PM leaving office tomorrow, a Labour party disgraced by sleaze and hammered in the elections, Ming Campbell looking politically frail and the Tories still without a single policy, and you give us…. “Ex-opposition leader makes money doing after dinner speeches”. Hold the front page.
You should just make some more stuff up - this blog really picked up when you announced Thatcher was dead.
jon t said this on May 9th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
This is the idiot who seems to write Cameron’s speeches in the HOC.
John said this on May 11th, 2007 at 5:26 am