Video summary
The video discusses a controversial situation involving Rupert Lowe, the leader of Reform UK and a Member of Parliament, who has reportedly received nearly £1,500 per hour for tweets posted on Elon Musk's platform X. Reports indicate that the total payments he received this year are set to match his parliamentary salary, with specific records showing approximately £56,000 earned across 12 payments for about 60 hours of work. The speaker expresses skepticism about these figures and highlights specific examples of Lowe's content, which includes calls for a burqa ban in Britain and criticism of BBC reporting on refugee success stories. This high engagement and financial reward raise significant questions about the influence of tech oligarchs on elected officials and whether such arrangements constitute financial interference in politics or simply incentivize divisive rhetoric to boost earnings.
Lowe has responded to these concerns by claiming that he donates his entire MP salary to local charities, arguing that being a politician is an expensive job for him. However, the speaker counters this defense by suggesting that relying on private interests rather than taxpayer funding warps an MP's incentives and potentially buys their loyalty to non-democratic entities. The discussion points out a feedback loop where increased engagement leads to higher payments, encouraging MPs to intensify divisive rhetoric to maximize their income from platforms like X. This dynamic is seen as corrosive to democratic processes, especially given Lowe's growing political influence and potential impact in future elections, which could be further amplified by financial support from billionaires with strong, specific political views outside the UK.
The conversation also contrasts Lowe's situation with that of Nadia Whittome, another MP who donates half her salary to charities but maintains no registered interests, illustrating a different approach to handling public service and personal finances. The speaker argues that while donating part of one's salary is acceptable, making up for the lack of public funding through private vested interests effectively means an MP is working for shady interests rather than the taxpayers they represent. There is a strong suggestion that MPs should not receive secondary incomes from media appearances or online posts, as their full-time role should be funded by the public to ensure they remain accountable to constituents rather than external financial incentives.
Ultimately, the video explores the tension between freedom of speech and the ethical implications of being paid for political expression on social media platforms. The speaker suggests that MPs should be free to express their views without payment, using their parliamentary salary as their sole income source to avoid conflicts of interest. While acknowledging the difficulty of stopping people from earning money in other ways, such as being landlords, the core argument is that MPs should not have additional paid roles that could compromise their integrity. The discussion concludes by criticizing the current system where a register of interests lists various sources of income without explaining how they are managed, highlighting the need for stricter rules to prevent corruption and maintain public trust in the political system.
Read the full video transcript
They say you can't buy love, but what I
personally would call hate on the other
hand can apparently make you a ton of
money. The Guardian has reported that
Reform UK leader and actual MP Rupert
Lowe has been paid almost 1,500 pounds
an hour for some of his tweets on Elon
Musk owned platform X with the total sum
paid out this year set to match his
parliamentary salary.
Now, I found this pretty hard to believe
myself. I don't know why because Ben
Seka told me earlier that she's been
talking about this a lot on another
podcast. So, I went and checked the
register of interest myself and yes,
it's right there in black and white. In
2026 so far, Lowe appears to have
received almost 56,000 pounds across 12
payments for a total of 60 hours work.
That's 932 pounds an hour. Nice work and
I'm going to do a very heavy inverted
commas on the work there if you can get
it. Except of course in Lowe's case, it
isn't nice. Amongst Lowe's high
engagement recent posts was this one
from last week calling on Britain to
enact a burqa ban. This was another Lowe
banger from the weekend getting in a in
a strop over the BBC reporting the
success of a Sydney child refugee
getting their GCSEs.
Now, it goes without saying that
everyone has the right to express their
opinion even if you fundamentally
disagree with it. Maybe the kind of
engagement Lowe gets and the kind of
money he makes though shows that lots of
people just do agree with him. Maybe
that's all it shows. But that kind of
massive engagement raises more than a
few questions for an elected
parliamentarian parliamentarian. For one
thing, Lowe is supported by Elon Musk,
the owner of X. He's like politically
supported by Elon Musk who has
repeatedly amplified the MP on the
platform and so grown his earnings,
earnings which are in turn paid by Musk
who likes Lowe's political views.
That's clearly a case of possible
incentivization if not financial
interference in our politics. And while
there's no suggestion of wrongdoing, do
we want our MPs being paid by tech
oligarchs who write things they like
that they can then amplify all with the
sheen of the officialness that comes
with the author being an MP. In other
words, potentially reducing our
parliamentarians to handy puppets whose
income is derived from credentializing
the views of someone whose vast power is
not democratic, but merely economic.
And of course, those payments could they
also incentivize the person, and I'm not
specifically speaking about Low here, to
double down on their rhetoric, even
intensifying it, rather than engaging
with a politics that's more in the
interests of the nations of the nation
rather than their bank balance.
In response to the Guardian article, Low
has said this.
If I wanted to make money, I would not
be in politics. I don't know donate my
entire net MP salary to local charities
in my constituency. Being a politician
is the most expensive job I've ever had.
Maybe don't give your money away, and
then it wouldn't be expensive. In a
later post on X, Low listed all the
charities in Great Yarmouth that he says
he gives his entire monthly MP salary to
each month. I think that's great, fine,
but it doesn't answer any of the
questions or concerns that I raised
above. And second, what do you make of
the story? As you As As I said, you you
you've been talking about this for a
while.
>> An evergreen story is becoming for me, I
think. Um yeah, it's really grim, isn't
it? Cuz I think for me, either way, it's
bad. Right, if he collects his his whole
salary, and on top of that, he's still
being paid by X, you know, I think
that's bad. Uh increasingly, it looks
like he's on a trajectory at the moment
where that um amount that he's getting
from X will will like start to dwarf his
MP salary if he was taking it. So, his
incentives are still warped because your
main uh pay is is actually coming from
somewhere else, potentially. But then,
the other side of it is also bad, which
is what he claims, which is he has said
that he donates his salary to charity. I
would argue that's maybe even worse,
actually, because then it means that you
are almost entirely bought potentially
by private interests and not the
taxpayer at all. You actually have no
financial incentive to be doing things
um in in in with the taxpayers and your
constituents in mind. So, I think that's
really really awful. And And the
charitable angle really, it's a bit of a
deflection. You know, would his
constituents not really feel like they
might be better off with an MP who, you
know, isn't bought by private interest,
right? Someone who doesn't have this
incentive to potentially be engaging in
increasingly divisive rhetoric, you
know, and and I think as you've shown,
like the more his posts are seen and
engaged with, the more money he gets.
So, there's a direct link, right,
between engagement and how much he
receives financially. And so, there is a
big incentive inbuilt into that, as we
know in these very pernicious platforms,
particularly X, to use more divisive
rhetoric, divisive ideas to further your
reach. And then if there's a financial
incentive linked to that, you know, that
I think that's quite corrosive
situation. We were talking earlier and
and Rupert Lowe is
he's not just a backbencher MP, really.
He's also actually someone who on the
political scene increasingly at a kind
of more national electoral level is
having an impact. He may well have an
impact his Restore Party in a number of
seats across this country come the next
general election. So, that's quite a
worrying set of ideas, a worrying
load of
sort of things coming together. And in
contrast, Nadia Whittome,
who when she became an MP, I think it
was in 2019, and I believe she's still
assigned to this commitment, which is
that she would give away half her
salary, and she gives away half her
salary to various different charities, I
think, or union movements and and things
like that.
I checked the register of interests
today. She has no registered interests.
It was just a blank page. And so, if MPs
want to do that, you know, that's fair
enough. You know, she takes half her
salary which she feels like she can live
on and she donates the rest elsewhere. I
think that's completely fine. But to try
and make up that vacuum with private
vested interests,
to me,
you are bought. You are not working for
the taxpayer. You are working for other
shady interests.
>> But I think each of the um
payments registered from X was for 5
hours work. And I think they start off
at the, you know, beginning of
this year or something, you know, sort
of 2,000 or 3,000 pounds for 5 hours
work. And by the end it's like 12,000
pounds for 5 hours work. So, you can see
how, you know, the
the amount of of how the engagement has
increased and the value of of the
tweets, assuming that that that hourly
amount that he's putting in is accurate,
that you know, he's going to produce so
many tweets in 5 hours or whatever, that
the the the the the money that they
bring in is in a kind of feedback loop
with the kind of engagement extra
engagements he gets points at which I
suppose Musk has, you know, tweeted
himself or commented on it on a tweet to
to to to increase the the engagement.
There is a kind of mechanism that seems
to be at work here, a really lucrative
mechanism if you're saying the kinds of
things that
a particular billionaire with very
strong political views
very strong and I would say differential
political views wants wants you to say
someone who's not even in the UK someone
who's in not that I think billionaires
in the UK should have extra rights, but
you know, they're in the they're in
America and they're not they're not
here.
>> And I it sort of made me laugh a little
bit because in one of the quotes that
you showed he said, you know, I I have
to work really hard to make my money. I
would I would not be in politics if I
you know, if I just wanted to make easy
money. And you know, not being funny or
anything. I think if he worked in a
hedge fund, I think he genuinely would
have to work harder for that money. Like
and I'm not sitting here defending, you
know, hedge fund managers or saying that
they, you know, are kind of hugely of of
a societal good, but I genuinely think
if you went to the city, you would
probably have to do more than a few
tweets to earn that kind of money.
>> Mhm, yeah. And it was interesting as
well. I was I thinking I was thinking
when I about about you know, what what
what should we do? What can be done?
That kind of thought. Like you know,
should there be you know, parliamentary
rules that say that you know, if an MP
just can't take money for media
appearances for example for work in the
media. I mean, I actually wouldn't be
particularly opposed to that. I think
MPs they are paid by the taxpayer. They
should go out and put themselves in
front of
the country for free to say what they
think so that people can decide in their
constituency whether they want to vote
for them and indeed whether they want to
vote for a party that they belong to. I
think you know, it's ridiculous that MPs
get paid to make media appearances or
get paid to say things on the internet.
I don't think that should should should
happen. But the trouble is, you sort of
immediately know what the reaction from
Rupert Lowe would be if there would be
any attempt to like institute on the
basis of the the kind of earnings that
he's making from a foreign billionaire.
Um which is that it would be a free
speech issue and it would be a way of
trying to silence a voice of, you know,
much needed dissent in the country, a
truth speaker who, you know, the
establishment can't bear to hear. Uh I
mean, obviously
and some people would buy that. I mean,
no one's stopping him from tweeting,
right? They're just saying you can't get
paid for it.
>> Yeah, and you can say all that stuff for
free.
>> You can say it for free. You know, I say
stuff for free.
>> So, you know, to me that kind of sullies
the the idea of of of freedom of speech,
right? Say, well, you know, I have to be
paid to say this. No, you you should
have your freedom to be able to to to to
say what you believe within some
limitations. I'm not a free speech
absolutist, but, you know, it to me it
really sullies that very important value
to say, well, I I simply must be paid. I
mean, it's just completely perverse.
Just say it for free. If you really mean
it and it really is just about your
values and nothing else, it's not about
the paycheck, you'll get up and say it
for free and you you can take your MP
salary. You know, I'm quite happy for
them to take their salary. I would even
justify if if we just kind of abolished,
um you know, secondary incomes, which I
personally would support, by the way, um
for MPs. I don't think they should get,
you know, a dime doing anything else,
you know, and if you don't if you don't
want to just be an MP, then don't be an
MP. I would support them having a
slightly higher salary. I would do that.
I I genuinely would because I think that
the impact of that would be to remove a
lot of kind of corrosive activity in in
a in our politics. But yeah, if if it
means that much to you and you you
really want to say it, you can say it
with your MP salary.
>> I never understand the argument against
raising MPs' salaries. I mean, you know,
I'm not saying like raise them to the
you know, to the to the level of, you
know, hedge fund managers or whatever,
but, you know, like yeah, put the put
them up a bit. It's a serious job. Pay
it pay it seriously,
um but come with a come bring bring the
caveat that that's that is like actually
your full-time job, your really truly
full-time job, and you can't have other
sources of of of of of paid income. I
mean, I you know, I guess you can't stop
people being landlords and whatever,
unfortunately.
>> Yeah, and like I say this all the time,
I think that register of interest is a
joke, because it's just one long list of
like here's all the ways I've been paid,
and here's all the ways I'm complicit,
but it's all written down, so it's fine.
>> Yeah, the one that always makes me laugh
is like the assets, but they they never
have to say what they're doing with
them. They just have to say they've got
them.