OUR front page story informing readers that one of Herefordshire’s two MPs was propping up his income with extra work with a financial company in Bermuda was “not news”.

That was the view of the politician at the centre of the story who is paid 24,000 US dollars a year for his role as Managing Director with Emerging Asset Management Ltd.

This income is in addition to the £74,962 Bill Wiggin receives for his annual salary representing the people of North Herefordshire as their constituency MP.

Mr Wiggin states that islands like Bermuda are no longer the “opaque havens they once were” and the beneficiaries of the funds invested in these off-shore accounts are the “30 million UK pension holders whose money rests in them”.

The Tory MP, who took several weeks to respond to our November 9 splash and subsequent letters from angry constituents, states that he “fully discloses” his earnings and outside interests and has done ever since he began working for EAM.

What Mr Wiggin did not do was address how much time he spends on his other jobs when many of our readers explained that they would prefer to see him using these hours fighting for their interests.

It would also be interesting to hear why Mr Wiggin feels he needs to supplement what many would consider an excellent salary as an MP and why it took him so long to respond to this newspaper’s questions.

The obvious suggestion to the latter query, of course, is that commitments in Bermuda got in the way.