Boris Johnson broke rules by accepting £275,000 newspaper job – but probably won’t be punished No longer the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson has returned to writing a lucrative column for the Daily Telegraph. However he […]

No longer the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson has returned to writing a lucrative column for the Daily Telegraph.

However he never informed the parliamentary appointments watchdog Acoba of the new role, which he is reportedly paid £275,000 a year for.

Rules bar former Cabinet ministers from taking up new jobs in their first three months – in case they might benefit financially from what the Government’s about to do, for example.

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The newspaper job means he received a pay rise by resigning as Foreign Secretary – taking his income from £134,000 as a minister, to at least £349,000 between his newspaper fee and £74,000 salary as a Conservative MP.

Public influence

A spokesperson for Acoba confirmed Mr Johnson had not contacted them before taking on his new role.

Despite breaching ministerial rules, he is unlikely to face serious consequences as Acoba has no substantive powers to punish MPs who go against the code.

It took Boris just a week to return to the newspaper after resigning from the government in a row over its Brexit policy.

In his first Telegraph column, published on Monday, he seemed to be using the platform to shape public opinion.

Though he steered clear of directly criticising Theresa May, he wrote: “I will resist – for now – the temptation to bang on about Brexit.”

Ineffective system

Acoba hasn’t got the teeth to stop this behaviour. We urgently need a radical overhaul of the system Jon Trickett MP

The regulatory body was labelled “ineffectual” last year by the the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

Baroness Browning, chair of Acoba, has previously said that former ministers and senior civil servants who do not follow the advice should face criminal prosecution.

Jon Trickett, Labour’s Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, told the Daily Mail: “Boris Johnson jumping straight from his role as a Government Minister to a job as a columnist makes a mockery of Acoba.

“If it was in anyway a functioning body, this kind of thing would be blocked. Acoba hasn’t got the teeth to stop this behaviour. We urgently need a radical overhaul of the system.”