Lying con artist Tory ex-cabinet minister was handsomely paid [basic annual salary £81,932 (from 2020) combined with amazingly generous pension pension rights (based on ‘final earnings’ at retirement, and the number of years the MP has been a member of the fund)] and raked-in substantial expenses as an MP (say up to £41,000 per month in the past year alone), yet instead of doing his proper job, he took alternative employment in 2016 with two companies (Northern Irish employers – health giant Randox and a meat firm Lynn’s Country Foods, trousering£112,000 a year for doing so), and against the rules worked tirelessly for them seeking government meetings, and lobbying ministers and officials, sending emails & letters, instead of working for his North Shropshire constituents and the State, before caught-out with his skulduggery was exposed. He resigned as an MP to escape, but has got off Scot free, hasn’t repaid a penny of his fraudulently obtained pay or expenses, nor been sanctioned at all and will draw full pension (say at least £18,500 a year), because he is a friend of PM Boris Johnson whose government is clearly prepared to support and ignore sleaze, and the speculation is that he is suspected of even offering him a peerage, making him a Lord, in compensation for his disgrace for corruption?

[Diagnostics company Randox, which paid Owen Paterson for lobbying work, won a coronavirus testing contract worth £133m just days before government officials confirmed it did not have enough equipment, according to documents. Questions also persist regarding Randox’s ability to land Covid-19 contracts worth around half a billion pounds, many awarded without tender, over the past year and a half].

This crass MP has publicly repeatedly denied any wrongdoing whatsoever, despite the damning evidence or being found guilty of braking lobbying rules by the appointed Parliamentary Standards Commissioner– which makes him not only a sleazebag but bare-faced liar, to boot?

The Conservative Party’s engulfment in further allegations of sleaze after Johnson’s interventions on lobbying rules and handling process including an embarrassing government U-turn, has resulted in a poll showing Boris Johnson’s approval ratings have hit a record low, while nearly half think HE and the Tories are corrupt!

The UK’s political anti-corruption reputation is now totally trashed, and so much then for its own strategy to step up global action to expose, punish and drive out corruption in all walks of life, eh?