HELLO, is that the Blowhard Squad? I’d like to report some missing persons please. On reflection, I think we can all guess why certain BBC bods were MIA yesterday: those pots of gold won’t make their own way to the bank you know.

No, if resources are stretched it is probably wise to concentrate efforts in one area. To cut to the chase: where has the real Pete Wishart, SNP MP, gone? There was “a” Pete Wishart on Twitter yesterday, looking forward to Scottish Questions in the Commons and referring his 30,000 followers to a story in The Herald on peers backing new powers for Scotland on migration.

But it cannot have been “the” Pete Wishart, because he would have been up in arms over another Herald story, this one highlighting the fact that a fellow MP had outside earnings worth almost £50,000 a year. Perhaps it was not this Mr Wishart who told his fellow MPs: “Looking after our constituents is a full-time job. A second job means a second master, and that second master expects something back in return. Let us make sure that we do this job exclusively on behalf of our constituents. There should be no second jobs, no paid directorships, no outside interests with a financial return.”

Maybe we are being unduly harsh. How could Mr Wishart, speaking two years ago, have been expected to know that one day the leader of his own party at Westminster, Ian Blackford, would be the one earning close to 50k on top of his Commons salary of 75k? Why, if Mr Wishart had such time travelling capabilities he would have been named the new Doctor Who, avoiding the need for all that unpleasantness over the choice of a woman.

Mr Blackford’s earnings, all registered correctly, came up in an end of term interview. The MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber said his business activities, including eight hours work a quarter as chairman of an outfit (net assets £761 million) that looks after money invested in funeral plans, were not a distraction and took up very little of his time. My priority, he said, was first to represent his constituency and second to represent the SNP in Westminster as group leader. So nothing to see here then?

Leaving aside the views of his colleague Mr Wishart, the story brings us back once again to the question of politicians and what voters expect of them. It is a story as old as the Commons, yet it persists because politicians continue to earn money outwith their official salaries. Mr Blackford is hardly alone. The class of June 2017 have a month to register their interests, with the report published later, so we do not have an up to the moment picture of other MPs’ outside earnings. The last parliament, however, was home to such high rollers as George Osborne (who topped up his MP’s salary by £628,000) and Boris Johnson (£356,459). Compared to them Mr Blackford is minor league, even if his extra earnings are substantially more than the UK average salary.

One could also argue that having other jobs informs politicians’ work and makes them better representatives. Insisting that people do nothing before or after election lest it be seen as detrimental or compromising would result in even more professional politicians than we have at the moment. Knowing little of life outside the debating chamber, the professional politician is more likely to see politics as a glorified parlour game rather than the stuff that can make or break people’s lives, and that is no use to anyone.

Mr Blackford is a former investment banker. It makes a refreshing change to have people in Scottish politics who do not regard business as the devil’s work and who appreciate that you cannot spend money without first raising it. His becoming the party leader at Westminster signalled a change in tone, one confirmed this week when he stated what for many was obvious: that the argument for independence would only be won when Scots are persuaded it will make them better off, not just socially but economically. That looked like a promise of serious work ahead in making the economic case for independence, as opposed to the fingers-crossed approach of the past. Who better to keep an eye on that work than someone who knew one end of a balance sheet from another? Nor are MPs the only profession to take on extra work: from hairdressers to teachers, a little more never goes amiss.

For all that, the case in favour of outside earnings has become as bogus as the one that used to be made by politicians employing their families: relatives could be relied upon to keep confidences, and they went above and beyond. By implication, anyone who was not a relative of the boss was work-shy and untrustworthy. No wonder that went down so badly with voters. The same increasingly goes for MPs earning extra cash, especially when many voters have not had a pay rise in almost a decade.

Being an MP is an extraordinary privilege. Why spend so many years trying to become one if the job is not enough? No one is demanding that MPs devote every waking hour to the public. It is, however, reasonable for constituents in need to expect that any free time an MP has within the working week should be spent on their cases, not on earning extra cash.

As for second jobs adding to the greater good, one could see how that is the case with GPs and other medical professionals, but serving on a board, writing a book, hosting a radio show? Hardly. It is also strange that those MPs who argue that second jobs keep them attuned to their constituents’ lives never undertake the kind of low-paid work that really would put them in touch with most people’s everyday struggles. Like the political equivalent of supermodels, politicians never get out of bed for less than a certain pro rata.

Given his share of the vote in the June 2017 General Election was down by almost eight per cent there are other reasons why Mr Blackford might want to concentrate on the day job from now on. One wonders, too, what his party leader, the real one, thinks of his extra jobs. If she is too busy to take on outside work, why isn’t he?