Because They're Worth It?
Cross party consensus among MPs? It can only mean one thing, it's time to review the salary earned by MPs. This time they're going for the jackpot.
Backbenchers have written to the independent body that sets salaries seeking a rise from the current £60,277 to achieve parity with GPs and council chief executives.
Such a hike would push up the cost to the taxpayer of the annual salary bill of the House of Commons from £39m to £65m and may trigger a public backlash. The party leaders, however, are likely to urge restraint.
In an attempt to limit bad publicity, Labour MPs have been encouraged to write to the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) individually, rather than formulate a collective submission. The Tories have made a submission through the 1922 committee of backbenchers.
I think we can guess the response other public sector workers would get if they asked for a 66% pay rise. Often in pay disputes, workers are asked to justify pay rises above the rate of inflation by accepting 'reforms'. I wonder what reforms MPs are prepared to accept in order to justify this huge rise in salary.
An efficiency saving of 30%
An efficiency saving of 30% would be quite welcome, starting with getting rid of all those MPs whose seats were engineered over the last 25 years to deliver victory for the party in power at the time.
They want parity with GPs?
They want parity with GPs? But GPs provide a service that people actually want, although their over-inflated pay was due to the botched negotiations with them recently.
Maybe MPs want parity with PR executives, since that's how they see their job -- selling someone else's crap policy to the public.
How about they use the money to pay their own re-election campaigns.
C'mon, guys, this is the
C'mon, guys, this is the price of freedom.
"How about they use the
"How about they use the money to pay their own re-election campaigns."
Or re-imburse Farepak's customers, whose plight was the result of their failure to spot a loophole in the financial services regulations (which don't apply to savings schemes when the payback was in goods rather than hard cash).
Comparing themselves to GP's is a bit rich, but then no-one's stopping them from applying. After all, it only takes a few years of low pay, late nights and hard graft...
I think that given the size
I think that given the size and scope of their total package - allowances, gold-plated pensions etc MPs have some nerve asking for more money. The thought of the mindless lickspittles popping up to ask The Glorious Leader to testify to his outstanding successes raising the dead in Nuneaton, or the same crop of brain-dead sheep voting against a parliamentary inquiry into the Iraq disaster, or the widespread unwillingness to hold the executive to account for wholesale disaster of adminstration and operation and the near complete failure of the opposition to defend what really matters and back PR with policy all show the incumbents don't deserve their current levels of recompense. Most of them would be challenged to run a whelk stall, as was amply demonstrated by some of the (inadvertently) hilarious footage of cabinet ministers doing "real" jobs which was aired at the last Labour Party Conference. In fact, some (like Hazel Bleary) looked just so right in that Tesco pinny that I think she has found her inner calling.....
If the pigs, sorry our
If the pigs, sorry our politicans, manage to get this one through. Are NuLabor MPs going to suddenly find themselves with a thirty per cent levy to bail out the party from the bankruptcy that the poodle has got them into?
Minimum wage for the lot of them, and put the money saved back into doing some good for this country.
While the thought is
While the thought is alarming, it would at least be logical. The structure of pay in the UK is actually very simple and consistent, once you understand the principle behind it. Essentially, this is: "The less you know and the less useful you are, the more you get paid". On this basis, many MPs rate a million a year.
Consider that a fully qualified scientist, possibly with an MSc or PhD, is lucky to earn £30,000 - £20,000 is more like it. Computer programmers are likewise deemed worthy of peanuts. Meanwhile politicians, entertainers, sportspeople, salesmen, consultants and other con artists pull down hundreds of thousands at least. And financial advisers, investment analysts, fund managers, and other witch-doctors make the most of all.
One of these days I must look into how all this squares with the celebrated theory of "the market". As far as I can see, it doesn't.
Let's outsource their jobs
Let's outsource their jobs to India.
Wonderful savings for the beleaguered taxpayer!
If we adjusted their bloated
If we adjusted their bloated packages in order that supply matched demand then a 60%+ reduction would be likely. There is no known justification to compare these people, who are mostly without suitable experience or qualification, with any group that are gainfully employed. Such a claim only exposes that the first priority of these people is to drink deep in the Public Trough.
Tom Welsh is right. Pay is
Tom Welsh is right. Pay is in inverse proportion to the social value of the job done. We can all live withiout marketing consultants, fashion designers, bond dealers, PR experts etc, but try going a fortnight without the Bin men. Agricultural workers are lucky to recieve the minimum wage, though we wouldn't last a month without them.
Unfortunately this fits all to well within the logic of the 'really existing market' 'Society is of only minimal concern to profit making.
It's interesting that.
It's interesting that. Bizarre government policies lead to massive increases in the salaries of workers employed by the government, and then they demand an absolutely obscene pay rise to attain parity with those workers. Well, there's something off there alright.
Snouts in the trough .
Snouts in the trough .
Somewhere between 5 and 20% of MP's are worth a 100K for their entertainment value, their intellect and honesty, and/or their hard graft in committees using the aforementioned qualities. No problem.
I guess the number is closer to 5%... and even then I may have to re-consider.
We come back to that question --- what are MP's for ?
Recent History indicates they are no use for anything, about as useful as "tits on a bull", or my own tits, being a male.
Blair announces the continuation of Trident, about 10years before it becomes an unavoidable decision, and this is presented as a Cabinet Decision. WE all know it was a Blair Decision.
Well, democracy might not be completely dead, but you have to look pretty hard to see signs of life.
Mostpeople in the UK did NOT WANT the Iraq Invasion,the Afghanistan increasingly growing nightmare, PFI,PPP, City "Academies",ID cards, teaching Creationism in schools, paying 'Consultants' in the NHS AND EVERYWHERE ELSE to lose Billions, University fees, but they got it it, despite their wishes.
Where were the MPs of all parties when this happened ?
Where were the MPs when Jackstraw and TB lied to the Commons about the Torture Flights ?
Where were they when Lord Ramsbotham roundly denounced prison conditions? (He followed on from Judge Tumim who also failed.)
Spineless, useless, not fit for purpose.
Cross party consensus, it
Cross party consensus, it can only mean one thing - business as usual. If there's anything significant that the UK's political showman disagree on I've yet to hear of it.
Democracy's not dead. It's just starting to smell funny...
ALL MP's should, while
ALL MP's should, while serving as politicians, be cashless. By that I mean, they are not given cash while they serve. Their housing should be supplied by the state, the schooling of their children be supplied by the state, transport provided by the state. All these things should be supplied to a comfortable level - but NOT at the maximum or peak level!
Food supply and variety should be good and a reasonable degree of clothing and energy availability should be made available. On retirement, they should either have these state given privileges remain (as long as they are free of corruption) along with being forbidden from partaking in commercial gain OR on retirement from public service be given a lump sum in accordance to a reasonable amount of savings a politician might have been able to accumulate while serving as an MP purely from their salary with a reasonable modifier based on an average investment portfolio they may have been able to secure by their own part-time initiative from their saved capital while also working as an MP.
This will stop the corruption that our politicians - the biggest collection of crooks and crims ever witnessed - indulge themselves in. It should be an honour to serve ones country and to do so it is not unreasonable to expect those who manage to secure this honour not to be able to put the honour of their own pocket above that of their servitude.
A randomly chosen panel of the ordinary public can be used to examine what is reasonable and whether any state privileges can be increased or lowered as appropriate.
Instead we have these largely narcissistic arrogant MP's bringing doom onto the advancement of freedom, tolerance and just society that the damn people want.
I want to dance on the grave of Tony Blair.
"dance"? ... you need a
"dance"? ... you need a dictionary: that's not how to spell "piss".
I didn't say what I'd do
I didn't say what I'd do before or after I dance ;)
Swine with their snouts well
Swine with their snouts well inserted into the public purse trough. Give them nothing. Inthis sham democracy these grovelling bastards tell you what you like on the doorstep for your vote and give you the finger once elected.