Fury as Tory MP criticises Boris Johnson’s second jobs plan, saying MPs are ‘human beings who have families’

When tensions are already high around MPs having second jobs to support their otherwise “really grim” salary of almost £82,000, we really don’t need to hear a Conservative politician reminding us that MPs are “human beings who have families and responsibilities”.

Unfortunately for us, Romford MP Andrew Rosindell was the backbencher who took it upon himself to inform us of that little known fact, during an interview with BBC’s Newsnight on Tuesday.

“I’m very cautious on [the prime minister’s move on second jobs] because I know that some of my colleagues have jobs and outside work that they do and that means them having to give up… changing their lifestyle.

“We have to be careful about this. We have to realise that we’re dealing with human beings who have families and responsibilities so whilst, as I’ve said before, the first duty must be to Parliament, to our constituency and to the work we do for our country.

“Any changes, I think, should be evolutionary,” he said.

‘Human beings’ also being a term used to describe the 3.6 million families who were left worse off as a result of the Government’s recent cut to Universal Credit, Andrew.

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The prime minister’s plans expand upon a challenge brought by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who said on Wednesday that his party would bring forward a Commons vote to ban MPs from being “paid directors and commercial consultants”.

On Tuesday, Boris Johnson shared his letter to Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle on social media, in which he expressed support for recommendations in a 2018 standards report which said that the MPs’ Code of Conduct should be updated to mention that “any outside activity undertaken by an MP … should not prevent them from fully carrying out their range of duties”.

He also cited another recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which states that the code should be amended to state that MPs should not work as Parliamentary strategists, advisers or consultants.

All of this was sparked by a controversial vote in the Commons at the start of the month, when politicians voted not to suspend Owen Paterson as an MP after he was found guilty of paid lobbying. Mr Paterson has since resigned.

However, Mr Rosindell has since criticised Mr Johnson’s stance on MPs having second jobs, with aforementioned comments which have enraged Twitter users online:

In other news, supplies of small violins are the latest to suffer a UK shortage…