What planet are they on?????

[DanaC]

The assumption of his future earnings is based on the post power earnings of previous PMs. There is an assumption that an outgoing PM will publish memoirs and attend as luncheon guest speakers at various functions.

Their income is high but not when compared to many of their profession in the capital ( I doubt legal types earn quite that much out here in the provinces *smiles*). I actually think as leader of the country Tony Blair's wage packet isnt that excessive. A house in London costs a great deal of money. For the amount they have paid they wont have got a very large house ( comparatively)

If the leader of the country was not paid a fairly large wage then we would be in the embarrassing position of having our leaders too poor to buy a house in the capital. The truth is Tony Blair could command more as a qc than he could as the Prime Minister and that's how I hope it will stay. We dont need our politicians to be doing the job solely for money. By the same token though we do not want our leaders to be struggling financially in their office as this would isolate all but the wealthy from a political career

Of course it's ludicrous for them to then complain that they are poor. They may have outgoings in excess of their earnings but that does not a poor man make.