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Lord Gowrie, Mark Simmonds: who had more right to complain?

<p class="p1">Plus: self-harm statistics, and accidental incest</p>

16 August 2014

9:00 AM

16 August 2014

9:00 AM

Ministerial needs

Home Office minister Mark Simmonds resigned, complaining he couldn’t afford to live in London on his junior minister’s salary of £89,435. His resignation echoes that of Lord Gowrie, who resigned as minister for the arts in September 1985 complaining he couldn’t live in London on £33,000 a year. Are ministers better off now than they were then?

— If you uprate Lord Gowrie’s 1985 salary with the Retail Prices Index (which the government now regards as overstating inflation), it would be worth £85,000, less than the sum earned by Simmonds.However,

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