Gordon Brown earns over #250K in just 3-months from book deal, speeches
By ANIMonday, January 31, 2011
LONDON - Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has earned more than 250,000 pounds over the last three months from a book deal and appearances on the international lecture circuit.
Brown, 59, caused surprise and anger at Westminster with his earnings, especially since he continues to draw his 65,738 pounds annual MP’s salary despite rarely attending the House of Commons.
“This is an astonishing reward for failure,” the Daily Express quoted senior Tory backbencher Mark Pritchard, MP for The Wrekin, as saying.
“Given the legacy of debt that Gordon Brown left the country with, he should feel embarrassed by accepting this huge sum while many families are struggling to pay their weekly food bills,” he stated.
New figures from the MPs’ Register of Interests showed that Brown is making a small fortune from lectures, a university post in New York and the publishing deal for his memoirs of the economic crisis.
One speech in Lagos, Nigeria, last autumn earned him 62,181 pounds even though he claimed it only involved four hours’ work, and he also earned 37,047 pounds for a 50-minute speech in Delhi, India, in November, which he claimed involved two-and-a-half hours’ work.
Publishers Simon and Schuster were shown to have handed Brown a “signature and delivery fee” of 78,290 pounds for his book, ‘Beyond The Crash’. Brown has said the proceeds are to go to charity.
He has also been paid 71,544 pounds for his post as “distinguished global leader in residence” at New York University. (ANI)
