Grayling back in another job

[PHILIPE]

Here is back again, failure rewarded again. Money for old rope for the hours and will there be any ships ?

Chris Grayling to advise ports operator in £100,000 role

The former transport secretary's part-time job is with the owner of Harwich and Felixstowe terminals.

www.bbc.co.uk

Ex-Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has landed a £100,000 job advising the owner of some of the UK's top ports.

The Conservative MP is working for Hutchison Ports, which operates Harwich and Felixstowe among other terminals.

According to the MPs' register of financial interests, he will be paid for seven hours work a week for a year.

The appointment has been approved by a Whitehall watchdog despite it raising concerns of a "perceived risk" that it may give the firm an unfair advantage.

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) said Mr Grayling had reassured them he would not be advising the company on its commercial maritime activities or risks and opportunities associated with Brexit.

The watchdog said the role would be limited to advising the firm, which also operates London Thamesport, on its environmental strategy and its engagement with local enterprise bodies.

It said the MP must comply with these and other conditions, including a ban on him lobbying ministers on behalf of the company or giving advice on UK government tenders, until July 2021, two years after he left the cabinet.

Mr Grayling stepped down as transport secretary when Boris Johnson became PM in July 2019, having served under his predecessor Theresa May for three years.

 

[thejuggler]

Why not just say it as it is, lobbying. There is no other reason to want an MP to do the work.

 

[Senex]

This does seem to be a country where once someone is on the gravy-train they just go on getting the cash from one post after another, regardless of their actual performance. Oh to be one of the so-favoured "great and good"!

 

[nlogax]

Has he not made enough money in his career to graciously step aside from the employment market altogether and give an opportunity to someone who's actually good at what they do?

Why is being utterly incompetent rewarded like this?

 

[alex397]

He is living proof that this society is not about what you know, but who you know, especially in his area of society.

I find it incredible that anyone would pay him for advice.

 

[Cowley]

He is living proof that this society is not about what you know, but who you know, especially in his area of society.

I find it incredible that anyone would pay him for advice.

I expect his advice is the best in the business.
(As long as you do the exact opposite of whatever he recommends. )

 

[brad465]

Three words: Satire is dead.

 

[PHILIPE]

Why not just say it as it is, lobbying. There is no other reason to want an MP to do the work.

I agree with you here as this is not a Government Appointment where all his previous appointments have been

 

[edwin_m]

The watchdog said the role would be limited to advising the firm, which also operates London Thamesport, on its environmental strategy and its engagement with local enterprise bodies.

(from the OP)

Making sure no ships visit the ports would be an environmental benefit to Huntchison.

 

[kermit]

This country's descent into casual, open corruption terrifies me.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

£100,000 for seven hours a week, that's a mere £500,000 full-time equivalent (of 35 hours). If his advice is world class it's an excessive amount.

 

[Cowley]

£100,000 for seven hours a week, that's a mere £500,000 full-time equivalent (of 35 hours). If his advice is world class it's an excessive amount.

His advice is priceless.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

His advice is priceless.

Indeed. A value cannot be put on the worth of his advice.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Tom Watson, former labour MP, has got a new job too, for a betting company
Not quite sure what to make of that either

 

[brad465]

This country's descent into casual, open corruption terrifies me.

£100,000 for seven hours a week, that's a mere £500,000 full-time equivalent (of 35 hours). If his advice is world class it's an excessive amount.

Tom Watson, former labour MP, has got a new job too, for a betting company
Not quite sure what to make of that either

I know Grayling is still an MP, but there are many in Politics, especially former PM's and other senior ex-cabinet ministers, who probably do it for the gravy train that is post-politics.

George Osborne of course stirred up controversy for being an MP, Evening standard editor and getting £600k a year advising BlackRock simultaneously (although the snap 2017 election saw him rescind the former before long).

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Here is back again, failure rewarded again. Money for old rope for the hours and will there be any ships ?

Chris Grayling to advise ports operator in £100,000 role

The former transport secretary's part-time job is with the owner of Harwich and Felixstowe terminals.

www.bbc.co.uk

You cant make it up. As my father would have said "true life is stranger than fiction"

 

[Bald Rick]

I’m genuinely surprised how this took so long

Also genuinely surprirsed why anyone is surprised.

And surely it’s a good thing. Given the position the country will be in this time next year, anything that improves the balance of payments current account it a good thing, every £100k of HK$ counts.

 

[Busaholic]

Tom Watson, former labour MP, has got a new job too, for a betting company
Not quite sure what to make of that either

I'd have had 10-1 against that happening.

 

[BostonGeorge]

Surrey is a real problem area because the Conservatives can stand whomever the hell they like safe in the knowledge that candidate will be elected. This is how the likes of Grayling come to exist - he never had to fight for anything in his life and it’s written all over his face. If I remember correctly, since 1950, possibly earlier, the Tories have only lost ONE election in Surrey and that was in 2001 when the Lib Dem’s took Guildford by a narrow margin.

As Jeremy Paxman once said, you could stick a blue rosette on a donkey and it would win every Surrey seat.

 

[C J Snarzell]

Grayling caused just as much damage to the Prison & Probation service as he did to the rail industry. In my previous career, we had bosses like Grayling who we called Seagulls - they take things off workers, s**t on them from a great height, then fly off to inflict misery elsewhere.

CJ

 

[Shimbleshanks]

Meanwhile the port of Felixstowe seems to be heading for another period of chaos - it is refusing to accept returned containers until 23 September. Truck operators reportedly cannot get slots on the vehicle booking system either. All this only a couple of years after the near collapse of the port becasuse of computer problems. The British International Freight Association is furious.
Clearly there's a job there to sort it all out; not sure if Grayling will be much help to them though...

 

[SteveM70]

If only we had a body responsible for approving ex-ministers taking these jobs that was prepared to say no occasionally. ACOBA are an absolute joke

 

[wireforever]

Grayling and the 3 stooges Osborne Cameron and Clegg have done rather well for themselves since leaving Govt all left behind a mess for someone else to try and sort out? Brexit,transport,justice dept etc. remember ' we are all in this together' and Osborne sitting in 1st class without a valid train ticket you or I would have been fined or taken to court for that !

 

[najaB]

Truck operators reportedly cannot get slots on the vehicle booking system either. All this only a couple of years after the near collapse of the port becasuse of computer problems.

Anyone taking bets on which will fail first - the vehicle slot booking system or the new HMRC system?

 

[Busaholic]

Grayling caused just as much damage to the Prison & Probation service as he did to the rail industry. In my previous career, we had bosses like Grayling who we called Seagulls - they take things off workers, s**t on them from a great height, then fly off to inflict misery elsewhere.

CJ

Grayling did way, way more significant damage to the country when he was so-called Justice Minister and oversaw the absolutely disastrous changes to the Probation Service in particular than he ever did as Transport Secretary. His continuation in public office beyond being a slavishly loyal, brown-tongued MP (and that's down to the constituents of Epsom and Ewell) is well beyond a national scandal now.