Gordon in the morning: Little Mix, big money

Gordon has got ever so excited at Little Mix's earnings. He starts off with the headline that they've banked over a million, but then the detail makes this a little less exciting:

In the financial year ending December 2012, the girls made £1.2million.

Gordon smacks his lips expecting more:

That’s before all of the income from their UK tour and album royalties would have come in, so they’re looking at another decent whack in the next 12 months.

Perhaps, although who knows how much the cost of all that help for the album was?

So, let's just focus on the money for the year to December, shall we?

£1.2million you say? That's not bad... except...

After their expenses — lots of hairspray — they netted a profit of £464,893

So as people, they actually only earned less than half a million.

Still, that's good, isn't it?

That’s almost £200,000 more than the US President earns a year.

That's true - Obama takes home about £265,000. Depending on exchange rates, of course, and remembering that he lives at the place he works which makes a mockery of the concept of "take home pay".

Except, of course, there's only one president of America, and there are four Little Mixers.

So that works out as £116,000 each, or about half a US President.

That's still not bad - although about forty grand less than MP Andrew Bridger makes when you add his second job and his MP salary, and Andrew Bridger says that's not enough.

And, as Gordon's "source" points out, they've worked bloody hard for that cash:

A source said: “The girls have barely had any time off since they won The X Factor. They got straight into the studio, then their tour, then were thrown into trying to crack America."

The band might want to look into who that source is, though, as they might have been dumped in it with HMRC:

“Given the girls have almost no expenses — they are always working, they get most of their clothes free and things such as bottle service in nightclubs are gratis — a lot of the income into that business will be saved up.”

Really? Because remember what Gordon said earlier:

After their expenses — lots of hairspray — they netted a profit of £464,893

Interesting that a band which has very few expenses managed to claim three quarters of a million difference between net and gross. Little Mix might want to find out who represents Vodafone.