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Those Blunkett Calculations

As far as I can tell if the standard rules apply David Blunkett got a payment of £15,000 for resigning on December 15th and will get £18,000 for resigning today.

There has been less than 11 months between the two dates. The normal ministerial extra salary is 74K. For 11 months he would get, therefore, 67K. However, if you gross up the 33K tax free that comes to over 50K and he has done 6 months of work as a minister which is 37K. In other words by resigning twice during this period he has earned a gross equivalent of 87K as opposed to what would have been 67K had he merely kept his nose to the ministerial grindstone.

That, of course, is a mild exaggeration as clearly his ministerial extra ceases from now onwards - not that he was that short of the funds from the various "jobs" that he had after resigning as a minister, which were the cause of him resigning this time.

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