Which ministers have complained publicly about their own poverty?

On their uppers

The former science minister George Freeman claimed that he resigned from the government last year because he couldn’t afford his mortgage repayments – which had risen from £800 to £2,000 a month – on his ministerial salary of £118,000.

– There is a precedent for a minister complaining publicly about his own poverty. In September 1985 the arts minister Grey Gowrie (who was a member of the cabinet under the auspices of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) resigned from the job complaining that his £33,000 salary was ‘not what people need for living in central London’. He was subsequently appointed chairman of Sotheby’s on a salary reputed to be £150,000. As a member of the House of Lords, however, he did not have an MP’s salary to fall back on.

Paris blockade

French farmers blockaded motorways and threatened to starve Paris into submission. How much do French farmers receive in subsidy under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)? Share of the total of €54.7bn