Salary Fiddling, Labour Style

The Telegraph reported over the weekend that one of Gordon Brown's final acts in No.10 was to slash the Prime Ministerial salary by around £50,000. The PM was previously entitled to a salary of some £132,000 on top of the £64,000 he received for being an PM - and this is the salary that Brown treated himself to while in No.10. I would assume it's the special PM entitlement bit that has been slashed, bringing the total PM salary down to around £145,000 - only a few thousand more than members of Cabinet.

Leaving aside the fact that I think the PM should be well paid - and paid a decent amount more than members of Cabinet - isn't this just classic Gordon Brown? In fact, it's classic Labour. Take a look at this table of PM salaries - on page 7.

Look what happened the moment Labour came to power in 1997; the PM-exclusive portion of the salary went up from £58,000 to £100,000. Nothing quite typifies Labour as well as them putting up their own salaries upon gaining power, and then massively slashing them when they lose it.