The 10 richest Tories in the shadow cabinet

There has been mounting speculation in recent months about the personal wealth of the leading figures in the Conservative Party. Interest has heightened after the Tories announced that they would implement an austerity budget, slashing public services, if elected to Government. Research carried out last year by the News of the World recorded 19 millionaires in the Shadow Cabinet, giving some indication of the level of wealth at the top of the Conservative Party. Here Times Money has updated the list. The figures for personal wealth are estimates calculated by the NOTW team in 2008.

1 Lord Strathclyde -  £10 million

The Leader of Opposition in House of Lords owns a million-pound pad in central London among other investments and also has a stake in Auchendrane Estates, a property management company worth £6 million. Thomas Strathclyde, 49, was born in Glasgow and speaks fluent French and studied at the Universities of East Anglia, and Aix-en-Provence in south of France.

2 Philip Hammond - £9 million

The Shadow Treasury Chief Secretary has an unconfirmed stake in a property investment company called Castlemead Ltd. He and his wife Susan also own a house in Belgravia, Central London, which they bought for about £1m and is now valued at around £1.5m, according to the News of the World.

3 George Osborne -  £4.3 million

Mr Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, went to St Paul's School in London and then Oxford University, where he was a member of the infamous Bullingdon Club. He has a home in Notting Hill, West London, valued at well over a million pounds and a constituency property worth an estimated half a million. He is also due to inherit a substantial stake in Osborne & Little, the wallpaper and fabric company set up by his father.

4 Jeremy Hunt - £4.1 million

The Shadow Secretary for Culture, Media & Sport owns almost half of educational guide publisher Hotcourses and has a property in leafy Farnham, Surrey. Jeremy’s first sporting interest was cross-country running at school. He now prefers to indulge in some Latin dancing – lambada is apparently his favourite - although he rarely has the time.

5 David Cameron - £3.2 million

The Conservative Party Leader went to Eton and then Oxford, where he joined the Bullingdon Club with Mr Osborne and Boris Johnson, the London Mayor. Mr Cameron and his wife stand to inherit a fortune. Samantha's mum is the successful businesswoman Viscountess Astor. Her dad is Sir Robert Sheffield, majority shareholder of Normanby Estate Holdings, worth £5.2m. David's father and grandfather were stockbrokers.

6 Dominic Grieve - £3.1 million

The Shadow Secretary of State for Justice was a barrister and ex-member of insurer Lloyds of London. He owns a £1.2m home in West London, plus a rental property in the City, and is part-owner of land in France.

7 Francis Maude - £3 million

The Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has properties in West Sussex, France and South London.

8 William Hague - £2.2 million 

The Shadow Foreign Secretary has made an estimated £780,000 from after-dinner speeches in recent years - he reportedly earns up to £10,000 for one appearance - and was paid at least £220,000 as director of several private companies. The MP also owns property worth more than £1 million.

9 Andrew Mitchell - £2 million

The Shadow Secretary for International Development was a director at a merchant bank before becoming an MP in 2001. Mr Mitchell is still a director of Lazard & Co. He also earns £40,000 a year as senior strategy adviser to Accenture and has shareholdings in all three companies.

10 David Willetts - £1.9 million

The Member of Parliament for Havant since 1992 and Shadow Minister for Universities and Skills, with special responsibility for family policy. He has worked at HM Treasury, the Number 10 Policy Unit, and served as Paymaster General in the last Conservative Government.

Other senior Conservative figures

Lord Ashcroft - £1.1 billion The Conservative Party deputy chairman

Michael Spencer - £250 million The Conservative Party treasurer

With thanks to the News of the World and the New Statesman

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Comments

[mr no so greedy]

you cannot get all this money by working then again the expences oh i seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Boubacar Lillongwe]

Rubbish ill-researched list.

Alan Duncan, Shadow minister for prisons, is probably the richest of all the shadow cabinet.

He's a multi multi multi millionaire.

Didn't stop him claiming the absolute maximum, year after year, on the second home allowance though.

[Matthew F]

"The Conservative Party Leader went to Eton and then Oxford, were he joined the Bullingdon Club with Mr Osborne and Boris Johnston, the London Mayor."

Mr Cameron may have gone to Eton, but the publisher of this article obviously needs some spelling lessons.

[Stuart L]

I find it thoroughly reassuring that the future leaders of this country are already so successful in their own right.

[Jack]

Successful? Half on them have inherited their wealth.

I hope other members of the Conservative party come form different backgrounds to these mentioned. Otherwise, I fear the policies they make will only ever benefit their own kind.

[davie p]

@ Jack

"policies they make will only ever benefit their own kind" - so you think NuLab aren't doing this? Hence the bankrupt state of the nation.

So how many tens of millions has Tony Blair raked in the past couple of years.

At least the Tories know how the real world works and will defend our interests. NuLab have been Labour hacks all their lives and rarely have they had a job outside of politics. They are naive ideologically driven hacks

[Jack]

I agree with you Davie, Labour are no better.

The point i'm trying to get across is this - how many of the people in the now cabinet, and the future conservative cabinet, went to a state school? How many have been successful entrepreneurs and started companies from scratch?

From the descriptions above, very few of them have lived outside of a certain box.

This is not a Labour vs Tories thing i'm on about, this is not a working class vs upper class thing I am talking about. This is a common sense thing. How can people make laws and policies on things they have very little personal experience of.

And from the list of Conservative mp's above, they all seem to come from the same background.

[Phil]

I wonder why they are going to be slashing public spending to allow for cut in inheritance tax?

[John]

I increasingly can't see the tories winning in any case. Therefore whether their wealth is inherited or earned doesn't really matter.

[Andy Davids]

In the grand scheme of things I'd hardly describe these people as rich. It was reported that Greg Coffey turned his back on £250m of share options and bonuses - personally, that I would describe as rich.

[Adrian Croxson]

Just one comment on the low quality journalism in this article - by having a house worth £1m does not entail that the person is worth £1m. Has no one heard of a mortgage. If I have a mortgage of £800,000 on a house worth £1m I am not worth £1m - I am worth £200,000. Just a quick and maybe pedantic comment - but just getting fed up with low quality fact checking in journalism these days.

[kenny l]

So no chance of a return to the super rich tax of 95%, abolished by tory Nigel lawson in his 1986 budget in favour of a 40% maximum.
Mind you, us poor went from 33% to 23%, but not quite the same.
That is why the economy is bankrupt and we cant support our troops or run the schools.
Taxing the people with the money will return one day, and it is getting closer.

[Tom T]

Vote for Labour, the only people with real proven policies rather than conservative political gibberish, UK economy is back on track and unemployment is reducing. The party that can take bold decisions can only run UK.

[m collins]

The taxpayer funded Labour equivalent list, starting with Blair?

[Np]

For balance, you should include the Labour bunch as well. Some have done well on expenses and running property development businesses at the taxpayer's expense. Blair's come out of it with 6 million quids worth of property.

[Np]

Labour are supposed to be socialists and the party for the working classes. They are capitalists as much as the Tories. There are some very wealthy Labourites. At least the Tories are transparent and you know what you are getting.

[derek]

Why didnt Lord Ashcroft head the list ? Oh,I see,its only the Cabinet,What about the rest !

[Adam]

Who cares what the shadow-cabinet own? The only thing I care about are their policies.

Constant focus on the politics of envy is pointless. Why don't people focus on building the best for themselves and their families, irrespective of what others achieve?

[Ali]

And so continues The Times' fetish for 'wealth'. What a fabulously pointless article.

[Rob]

Well at least these guys aren't getting into politics to make money - they already have it. They might be able to spend their time concentrating on running the country rather than fattening their wallets. Blair and Prescott are multi-millionaires now! How did that happen?

[Nigel]

These figures are surely Conservative?

[Thomas Magill]

People who are rich can never imagine what it is like to be poor. People who are poor can never understand why people who are rich have a need to pass their wealth on to their children. Why should we all not start from scratch? What is the influence that rich people feel that makes them so defensive that they retain their wealth to pass to their dependents? Fame? Notoriety? But they don't know any of this - they are dead! We remember all these rich people - why? Because history is a record of RICH PEOPLE which forces us to remember them - but what is the point? They are DEAD!

[John]

How about an equivalent list for the Labour party so we can compare? Or are only Tories allowed to be rich? I'm sure 2 Jag's Prescott with his mansion isn't exactly on poverty row?

[Anita]

Neither Tony Blair nor John Prescott are members of the Cabinet, therefore neither would feature on an equivalent Labour list.
They were not possessed of vast (to most of us) quantities of wealth whilst in policy making positions, which seems to be the point of the article.

[Jason]

How on earth are these people going to identify with the down trodden middle classes, currently paying for the feckless and lazy, and are about to put money in the pockets of the privileged and rich.

Poor Britain, we're doomed to political system cast from the dark ages.

[John T]

Got one for the ACTUAL cabinet?

With the likes of:

- Harriet Harman QC
- Lord Mandelson
- Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
- Lord Adonis
- Lord Drayson
- Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC

I somehow doubt whether they're short of a few quid either...

[John T]

By the way, I make that one titled Conservative Shadow Cabinet Minister to this current Labour Cabinet's five.

Which is the elitist party of special privilege again?

[Charlotte Peters Rock]

George Osborne does NOT have any property in his constituency of Tatton.

It is miles away from the constituency - convenient for the train to London, without sullying his heels with the soil of his voters.

With such wealth, why does he feel the need to take taxpayers money for a scond home'in the constituency' - when it is not in the consitiuency?

And when will we see him prosecuted and slung out of Parliament?

[danny]

such a shame that the times feels the need to publish this pointless drivel. Though I suppose all this goes to show is that the shadow cabinet are just a bunch of self interested, money obsessed individuals and I should thank the Times for bringing this to the attention to their readership.

Thankfully it's looking less and less likely that Labour will lose now, and we can continue the years of good work at creating public services to be proud of. All we need to do is tax the people above to pay for it.

[Sebastien Beaufort]

Why is the Times obsessed with turning the upcoming election into class warfare?

[GregB]

Really, these sums are a drop in the bucket. I am very surprised at how little these guys are worth. What exactly is wrong with being successful and wealthy?

[Tom]

Do you genuinely believe these figures? They are laughably low, as is the idea that Philip Hammond can have a house in Belgravia that is only worth £1.5m! Sorry, old thing, but they don't come that cheap in that part of SW1.

A pointless and completely baseless list.

[Colin Smith]

These sums are only the tip of the iceberg.

I was thinking of voting Tory not that long ago, but I don't believe in any one of them any more. I haven't heard a single solid proposal to turn the country round, just more of the foolish benefits tweaking in a futile attempt to win a few votes. My disillusionment echoes that of more and more people. Creeps the lot of them.

[Andrew Fairhead]

What does it matter? What is the writer trying to prove? Would it be better if they were all paupers? What a ridiculous article. Better use your time to investigate the abomination of this NL so called government. They are an embarrasment to our country, and poor examples for the people of this country.
As someone else has observed, investigate NL figures. If they have less wealth it certianly has not proved beneficial in Government.
In fact its plain and simple, none of the, for 12 long years has been beneficial. The only way is up.... NL took us down-a long way-now its going to take a long time to get back up. Any talk of recovery is crazy, as any sensible person will realise.
All journalistic attack is pure grandstanding, worse than politicians......why cant they do some honest reporting and presentation of FACTS for a change?

[Jon Anthony]

I can't believe how bad this article is - and in The Times... And who exactly is Boris Johnston?

[Seb Wallace]

Who says a ruling class ceases to exist in modern society?

[DEN]

HOW SAD. INSPITE OF ALL THE SO CALLED CHANGES - NOTHING CHANGES
THE PROBLEM IS "WHO DO I VOTE FOR NEXT TIME"

[Greychatter]

I don't care if a Good leader went to Eton of the Local Junior school as long as his interest is in the total good of the country.
If he has a few quid of his own maybe he won't need to fiddle his expenses.

[DamaskinosWasRight]

So the point of the article is that anybody with REAL money is too smart to bother with Tory politics?

[Liz]

Can we now have The 10 Richest "Socialists" in the Cabinet?

[david c]

This is balls, labour are just as rich. im voting conservative because they have more of an idea on what they are doing, i dont care if they have more money. why is it that this country cares so much about wealth, of course theres a divide between upper and lower class if people focus so much on what someones worth.

[graham s]

I dont care about their wealth i care if they are going to do well for the country as a party. Of course we still have a divide between the classes if people focus so much on a persons wealth. Terrible left-wing journalism.

[will]

im glad to see that the tories are rich, it shows that they have had real world business experience rather than just being proffesional politcians.

obviously some of them will inherit, but that isnt a crime.

you have people in that list that have been entrepreneurs, barristers, insurers and directors of companies. to my mind that makes them vastly more qualified to run the country than their labour equivalents.

gordon brown, journalist for 5 minutes and proffesional politician. hillary benn, worked for a union and then proffesional politician.
harriet harman, studied politics at university, was a do gooder for a while and then became a proffesional politician.
alastair campbell, studied modern languages and was a journalist.

can we see the difference?

[Bernard Parke]

How can these people understand the the needs of the less fortunate unless it s to keep them in servitude?

[RubberDuck]

Do Tory represent the rich and wealthy ?
YES OF COURSE THEY DO.

Is it a problem at all ?
NO, NOT IF YOU YOURSELF IS LOADED

Will Tory change the distribution of wealth ?
OF COURSE NOT

Will Tory ransack the middle-class to address the deficit in public finances ?
OF COURSE THEY WILL

Thesis:
In times of financial trouble, conservatives will always try to allocate funding by taxation of the middle-classes. This makes some sense as there are a bloody lot of them.
Labour and other socialist-oriented parties, will instead attempt to reallocate wealth from the upper-class. This also makes sense, as most of the wealth in the country, actually sits on very few hands.
The underclass is left alone, as they per definition has nothing worth stealing.

Were we currently in one of our best years, yes Tory would be an interesting alternative. However we are in the midst of a deep recession, and if the middleclass wants to preserve a little of the wealth they have been able to build up the last 20 years, Tory is not the answer.

Somebody will have to bleed heavily for the current crisis, and the next election will determine who the poor sod will be. Im not wealthy enough to expect a lot of Tory protection, so, I will have to find the best alternative....

[thebluesman101]

"We're all in this together." remember that???

Vote for Labour in the next election and stop blaming Gordon for nothing.

Cameron hasn't given any stance on what he believes in but that doesn't matter because the tories don't believe in anything other than the me mentality. It is an absolute tragedy that is son died but without the NHS loads of people will die and this was the factor that made him change his mind about it. He never thought about all the other families before something tragic happened to him.

He has got the vote on the back of the BNP because he shouts 'immigration' all the time without giving any solutions (people forget that the brits immigrate to other countries all the time). Cameron has also hooked up with a fascist party in Brussels, not to mention he spent his time smashing churches up in the bullingdon club.

Then we have Daniel Hannon who shamelessly said that the NHS was evil in America so that he could try to get a top job in the states.

Do you think the tories actually believe in anything? Or are people going to continually bash GB because it is fashionable to bash people who are in charge. Cuts aren't the answer, growth is because then you have healthy people with roofs over their head who can afford to stimulate the economy, find work, start businesses and people will have money to buy products. It's the Kensian form of economics that saved us from the great depression and Labour know this, it's a long term solution, not a short term one. GB deserves another term (and he cannot stand TB, he only supported him over the EU because if he didn't it would have been the end of Labour.

[thebluesman101]

Support the people who actually have long term goals and plans for saving the economy, vote for Labour, (and if you're in Scotland think about the snp, i'm still undecided on that one)