Sleaze has reared its ugly head again. Rather than avoid it, I will, in my normal style, address it head on.

First, I do not, nor have not had, a second job while being your MP.

Second, I believe MPs should be banned from paid consultancy. It is a glaring conflict of interest. I support the government’s plans.

Third, Boris Johnson should not have defended Owen Paterson. I defied Government orders and did not support it. The report into him was fair. Standards chairman, Labour MP Chris Bryant, defended it well. He was so much more effective than, sadly, the many partisan Labour MPs braying for blood while being unaware of their own party’s poor record.

However, I don’t think it inherently wrong for an MP to have outside interests.

Doctors and nurses sit as MPs for all sides. Sometimes they do part-time work: good! Some lawyers also continue to practice — and that includes Labour leader Keir Starmer, who has earned over £100,000 extra.

Boris was a newspaper columnist whilst an MP. Do we ban MPs from writing articles and books?

Members of the Armed Forces Reserve will sometimes train. I am in the Reserve. I have done four days service since 2017 (unpaid).

However, being an MP is a privilege. If MPs have second jobs or outside interests, these must be secondary. MPs must show judgement.

In relation to scandal, since 2011 one Tory MP has been imprisoned while several have resigned under a cloud. More Tories than Labour have second jobs. Several Tory lords also went to prison in the expenses scandal.

In the same period, seven Labour MPs (one appealing) have been given jail sentences - one every 500 days or so. Several others have resigned under sexual harassment or drug allegations.

The Labour Party was found responsible for “unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination” during its anti-semitism scandal.

So, problems exist on both sides. But one should not overstate. The UK political system remains, according to anti-corruption experts Transparency International, one of the world’s least corrupt.

What we need is additional reform to keep it clean. I would ban paid lobbying immediately. I would also look at major reform of the laxed area of foreign lobbying – but that’s an article for another time.

As your MP, my only priority will always be to Islanders and to the Island.

I wish you all a good weekend.