Friday, April 20, 2007

Can Nothing Be Done To Help These People?

The incidence of poverty amongst senior members of the Partido Popular (PP) seems to be getting out of hand. No sooner have decent citizens come to the rescue of Esperanza Aguirre, than more sad news reaches me of yet another deserving case. I have read this afternoon in El Mundo that the PP leader Mariano Rajoy, unlike Espe, does manage to make his salary last the whole month, but that he still needs to check his bank account every 30 days.

The Poor Party....


This is shocking news, the man has a salary as a member of parliament, and another one as leader of the PP parliamentary group; yet he still has to fret and worry about whether he will make ends meet. The whole issue arose as a result of Mariano's appearance on the new show on Spanish television where members of the public are allowed to ask direct questions to senior politicians; I have already written about Prime Minister Zapatero's problem with the price of a cup of coffee on the same show. Mariano was asked how much he earned by someone who lives on a pension of €300 a month. He dodged the question, admitting - as if we didn't know - that his salary is a good bit higher than €300. However, nobody seriously expected him to be pleading poverty the very next day, maybe they should have had a collection amongst the audience on the programme.

According to El Mundo, members of the Spanish parliament earn a base €3020.79 a month, but this gets topped up with another €1762.18 for members from outside of Madrid. Then you add the expenses.....and the salary as leader of the PP. It looks like we might need someone to organise another appeal!

3 comments:

madrid teacher said...

There are plenty of part time jobs with bad contracts they can do to top up their wages. A friend of mine needs a gardener and with summer coming there will be plenty of work for Mariano to do.

Graeme said...

Well lets hope he finds something, he could soon be losing one of his existing salaries if things don't pick up for his party.

Tom said...

Incredible. According to my cacluation, he gets around €16,000 a month - not far from what your average mileurista earns in a year.

As my mother in law said, "Els no tenen vergonya".