EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Dominic Raab is ‘feeling the pinch’ on his £80,000 salary – plus expenses

When is it socially acceptable to plead poverty? 

The Tory leadership contender Dominic Raab has publicly complained that he’s ‘feeling the pinch’, even though he’s paid £79,468 per year — plus very generous expenses.

Raab resigned as Brexit Secretary last year, losing his £33,630 extra pay.   

The Esher and Walton MP, who lives in Surrey with his wife and two children, wails to his local newspaper: ‘This is a lovely area in which to bring up a family … but it can be an expensive place to settle and, like everyone, I feel the pinch these days.’ 

But if the karate black belt does manage to fight his way into 10 Downing Street, he can look forward to a £70,000 pay rise.

Last year, Mr Raab’s resignation was a hammer blow for Mrs May and sent the pound plummeting nearly 2 per cent against the dollar – its biggest fall since June 2017. 

He lashed the PM’s Brexit proposal in his departing letter – warning that the deal threatens to drive a wedge within the United Kingdom.

In March, he was mocked online for leaving two piles of political biographies on his windowsill of his Surrey home during a BBC interview ‘to appear well-read’. 

Raab appeared for a BBC interview with what appeared to be a carefully curated selection of books in the background, including the autobiography of Austrian bodybuilder-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger and biographies of US Presidents Regan and Nixon.

The pile of books also contained a primer on economics from the Economist magazine, in what may have been an attempt to prove his ability to run Britain’s economy.

And it did not take long for people to take to social media to mock Mr Raab for trying to appear well-read with the awkwardly placed stack of books. 

If the karate black belt does manage to fight his way into 10 Downing Street, he can look forward to a £70,000 pay rise