Shamed Former Tory MP Julie Kirkbride Lands £100 000 Lobbying Job

Shamed former Tory MP Julie Kirkbride lands £100,000 lobbying job
By [/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Jason+Groves+for+the+Daily+Mail Jason Groves for the Daily Mail]
Updated: 16:41 GMT, 24 May 2010







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Plum job: Former Tory MP Julie Kirkbride will earn £100,000 as a lobbyist

Former Tory MP Julie Kirkbride has landed a lucrative job in the lobbying industry days after being forced to quit the Commons because of public anger over her expenses.

Miss Kirkbride, 49, was appointed as a consultant to the Westminster-based lobbying firm Tetra Strategy on a salary rumoured to be approaching £100,000.

Last year her former MP husband Andrew Mackay, who was also embroiled in the expenses scandal, landed a six-figure salary post as ‘international consultant' to the lobbying giant Burston-Marsteller.

The appointments are a potential embarrassment for David Cameron who has already warned his ministers to guard against attempts by lobbyists to influence policy on behalf of their clients.

In a speech in February this year the Tory leader warned that lobbying was ‘the next big scandal waiting to happen'.

Miss Kirkbride and Mr Mackay faced a public outcry during last year's expenses scandal after it emerged they had managed to claim lavish expenses on both their London and constituency homes at the same time.




Between them the couple were ordered to pay back more than £60,000 after details of their arrangement were made public.

The couple both faced angry public backlashes in their constituencies and stood down at the election. Now they are both looking to cash in the contacts picked up during their years on the public payroll.

Tetra Strategy said Miss Kirkbride, a former journalist and one-time shadow culture minister, would bring a ‘wealth of Parliamentary experience' to the firm, who listed clients include Innocent Drinks and the School Food Trust quango.

In a statement the company said: tour du lịch hạ long ‘Julie will enhance our already strong political diversity across the three main parties enabling us to offer the very best advice to our clients.'

Miss Kirkbride is believed to have been looking for a well-paid lobbying job for tour du lịch hạ long several months before she stood down as an MP.




However she managed to avoid getting caught up in a sting operation by Channel Four's Despatches programme earlier this year, which filmed former Cabinet ministers Stephen Byers, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt boasting of their influence.


Miss Kirkbride was approached by the fake lobbyists but smelled a rat and tipped off other Tory MPs involved.

Lobbyists have been desperately seeking well-connected Tories in recent months in the belief that they will be able to open doors with the incoming Government.

Earlier this year Mr Cameron hit out at the revolving door between politics and the lobbying industry - warning that it was damaging trust in politics.

He said: 'We all know how it works.

The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way.

'I believe that secret corporate lobbying, kynghidongduong.vn like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics.'