Colin Fox

Colin Fox is one of the SSP’s two national spokespersons, and has been an active socialist for more than three decades. He tops our list of candidates for the European elections.

Colin was an MSP representing the Lothians between 2003-2007. Not once during those four years did Colin ask the tax payer to pay for the cleaning of his moat. He did not profit from a second home, or hire chauffeurs with the public purse. Instead, he caught the bus to work.

In fact, while elected politicians of other parties amass small fortunes in wages and expenses, Colin and other SSP representatives took an average skilled workers wage. “We donated the rest of our £55,000 salary to the party,” he explains. “For me that meant writing out a cheque for £1,300 each and every month to the SSP.”

If elected to the European parliament, Colin will once again abide by the SSP pledge to take an average wage, rather than the full 84,000 euros that goes with the position.

The policy isn’t an empty gesture, but ensures accountability, says Colin.

“If I hear someone argue that MPs are underpaid at £68,000 per annum once more, I will scream! The fact is they are in the top 2 per cent of wage earners in Britain – and that’s before fiddling their expenses, allowances and travel!

“If MPs lived on the average wage of those they represented not only would they have far more fire in their bellies and better understand the job they were sent to London to do.

“They would be less inclined to pass the buck to meaningless Committee’s and procrastinate in countering the big scandals of our age – the poverty, inequality, ill health, homelessness and financial corruption of the bosses system.”