Andy McSmith's Diary: A cabinet post beckons, but Boris Johnson doesn’t need the money

The Mayor of London would love the responsibility that goes with a senior cabinet job, but the salary is of no attraction

Johnson would doubtless love the responsibility and the publicity that goes with a senior cabinet job (Getty Images)

As Boris Johnson’s time as Mayor of London draws to a close, there is speculation about which cabinet post David Cameron will offer him, since it is unlikely the Prime Minister would want to leave someone so ambitious on the back benches, where he can cause all manner of trouble. The Tory peer and political commentator Lord (Danny) Finkelstein has hazarded a guess that he could be the next Foreign Secretary.

Johnson would doubtless love the responsibility and the publicity that goes with a senior cabinet job, but the salary is of no attraction. A cabinet minister’s annual pay, including his salary as an MP, is £134,565.

That is a minnow compared with the money the Mayor makes. There is his MP’s salary of £74,000, plus £47,790 he is paid for his continued role as Mayor, plus £275,000 which the Daily Telegraph pays him for writing a column. That is a regular income of over £530,000 a year. On top there are the royalties from books written plus publisher’s advances on books he has yet to write.

His latest entry in the register shows that his book writing has earned him nearly £273,500 just in the seven months since his return to Parliament. So if he accepts a cabinet job, let no one say he is in it for the money.

A first for Oldham

A side effect of the Oldham by-election is that the town will now, it appears, have its first ever woman council leader. Jim McMahon, who led Oldham Council from 2011, stood down on becoming MP for Oldham West and Royton. According to the Oldham Chronicle, the only candidates to replace him are female. They are his former deputy, Jean Stretton, and Aroof Shah, who was “Young Councillor of the Year” in 2013.

Open mic night to forget

Simon Carter, a town councillor from Tewskesbury, has apologised for calling the Mayor John Badham a “tosser”. He had forgotten that the microphone was switched on, he told the Gloucestershire Echo. “I was muttering, I thought, to myself. We’ve all done it,” he said.

The not-so-good old days

The latest issue of Talk Through, the magazine of the Ministry of Defence Police, pays tribute to Inspector Angela Harney, who has retired after 39 years with the force. In her early days, women officers never worked night shifts; at public events, they looked after lost children; back at base, they were expected to make tea; they were allowed to claim stockings on expenses but had to produce receipts to prove that they had not bought tights, and were required to wear skirts, so tight that they had to hitch them up when giving chase. Very Life on Mars.

More diplomacy needed

Patricia Scotland was one the smarter Labour politicians of the previous decade, the first woman Attorney General, sufficiently well regarded across the Commonwealth to be chosen as that organisation’s next Secretary General, a job she will begin in April.

But she has created a stir in her native island of Dominica. Speaking at a ceremony in the north of the island, with the Prime Minister Roosevelt Skeritt at her side, and using a mix of English and creole, she finished by declaring: “May you walk with God… I pray that, so powerfully for our cabinet and for our Prime Minister. Ou sav toute mon vley bai maypwee. Mwe ka di ou di yo souse sel!”

I do not claim to speak creole, but I am told that last bit was directed at those speaking disparagingly about the Prime Minister, and meant “may they go eat salt”. The audience, applauded and screamed with laughter. But some of Skeritt’s critics have not taken kindly to the insult. She will have to be more diplomatic when speaking for the Commonwealth.