AN aide to Boris Johnson has become the best-paid local politician in the country after being given three jobs by the Mayor.
Daniel Moylan is able to earn almost £150,000 a year by adding his £75,000 salary as aviation adviser to his pay for roles on Transport for London, Crossrail and as a Kensington and Chelsea councillor. That takes his total potential earnings above Boris Johnson’s £143,911 City Hall salary.
Critics say it is an “extraordinary amount” for a Tory politician known for his uncompromising style, especially while chairing the Olympics legacy board.
As aviation adviser, Mr Moylan spends about three days a week gathering support for Mr Johnson’s desire for a new airport to be built east of London, either on an artificial “Boris island” in the Thames estuary or by expanding Stansted.
He earns £24,000 a year for sitting on the TfL board and £40,000 at Crossrail, which he joined as a TfL appointment in August. In addition, Mr Moylan receives £10,597 a year at Kensington and Chelsea, where he has been a councillor since 1990.
Mr Moylan, 55, said he would not earn more from City Hall than deputy mayors such as Isabel Dedring and Richard Blakeway — who earn about £128,000 — as his aviation salary would be reduced from next April. He said he could not be appointed as a deputy mayor outright while remaining a councillor. He added: “I’m somebody who does a job who also happens in their spare time to be a councillor. That is what council work is meant to be like. You need to stop thinking of me as a councillor with other roles. Think of me as someone who has a job in the real world.”
He described himself as a “timelord” who was able to cope with four jobs and said he was “not busy enough”.
He said: “What they don’t like is that I’m good at my job. I have no difficulty working eight days a week. The one thing that people have never complained about me is that I don’t do my work, reply to emails or return phone calls. It’s the old adage: If you want something done, ask a busy man.”
Mr Moylan said that for part of the year he was earning less than £100,000: “You could do a sob story about this poor guy who has only been getting £99,000 for the last six months.”
Andrew Dismore, a Labour member of the London Assembly, said: “It’s pretty outrageous to get that sort of money from the public purse for doing three jobs that are essentially the same one. They’re all to do with transport.”
