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Status anxiety

Mark Simmonds was just saying what a lot of MPs think

It’s one thing to make these sacrifices if the public hold you in high esteem – quite another if they think you’re a crook

16 August 2014

9:00 AM

16 August 2014

9:00 AM

I feel some sympathy for Mark Simmonds, the Conservative MP who’s resigned as a minister and is stepping down at the end of this Parliament because he can’t support his family. His announcement has been greeted with scorn and derision by the chattering classes — how dare he complain that an MP’s salary isn’t enough to live on? — even though most of them are earning far more than him.

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Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.

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