The Political Pigs Want More Money!
Danny Finkelstein seems set on winding Guido up (again). Having fought a long media campaign against the Tories making the case for lower taxes in The Times, on Newsnight and via text messages to George Osborne, he is now arguing for higher pay for MPs to make up for their reduced future opportunities to fiddle their expenses.
MPs’ expenses alone almost match average mean earnings, in fact after tax is deducted, MPs’ tax-free perks alone exceed average (net) mean earnings. Their salaries are triple what the average voter / taxpayer earns, add in their perks and it is quadruple what the average voter / taxpayer earns. The chart above (source) shows income distribution in Britain. See how MPs are way over-paid already.
The “mob” referred to last night in his set-to* with Kelvin MacKenzie on Newsnight might not be part of the metropolitan media class struggling to get by on six figures, but they know self-serving bullshit when they see it. MPs don’t deserve the salaries they are actually on, there can be no question of them deserving a pay rise. Unemployment is above two million, there are plenty of better qualified people available who would do a better job than the parasitic, all-party, interchangeable professional political class currently in control of Westminster. Not a single penny more for the pigs.
*Worth watching from 10 minutes in: Kelvin telling it like it is about Alastair Darling’s “quasi-criminality”…
There seems to be no shortage of people who want to become an MP, so should the salary be reduced? If you do not like your remuneration, then get a job elsewhere.
Maybe they only want to be MP’s because of the salary, allowances, and generous expenses system?
It’s a shit job really – the only plus point is the pay,as far as I can make out.
Everyone seems to think MPs should earn the average wage – I think that the majority of MPs do a lot more work and more demanding work than the hamburger flippers and shop assistants earning less than £10ph.
Don’t go to Burger King. Stay with me i’m the right clown for the job.
My empire is worth more and has a higher accredit rating than your entire country, one of my hamburger flippers could run your country better than Gordon Brown.
DA DA DA DA I’M LOVING IT.
They all end up millionnaires with a property portfolio and a huge pension; that’s the attraction. Just think of earning that money in industry or business!
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IS DANIEL FINKELSTEIN A DGJEWISH NAME
Djews are quite cool now.
Its Moslems that we cureently do not like.
it’s the eskimoes what is the problem. coming over here and nicking all our seal clubbing jobs.
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DGJEWS WILL BE WELL AND TRULY AOUWT IN THE COLD SOON
oi, you scottish catholic
put a coin in the pint for the cause, wear your celtic shirt and shut up!
On Newsnight last night, half way through a discussion about expenses, Danny Finkelstein suddenly turned into an oy vey gorblimey in front of our very ears. He must be some sort of cockerney hybrid.
I too saw that! He is just sorry that it was Telegraph that outed the scandal and not his paper!
Indeed DaveA, and expenses are net of tax
PS Guido, great eductional graph about means, medians and outliers!
Anybody know how MPs salaries compare to the median wage which is a lot lower then the average last time I heard?
If they don’t like their salary, perhaps they should chuck one MP out, divi the cash up, repeat until happy with their lot (loot?) I wonder how many there would be left after that.
Don’t forget the fucking unbelievable holidays too and the fact that expenses only cover half their expenses as the BBC etc pick up the rest. Sir John Bourne springs to fucking mind.
shoot the fuckers up the arse
Sober again Freddie lad?
its all this training
Ah, no lad, I’m not havin’ that, it’s just not cricket
gotta be fit for da ashes
You no the way that Tory got blasted for shopping at Dave Camerons mum’s shop? saying it was keeping the expenses in Tory coffers indirectly.
Why has no one said the same about BBC paying for LEFTIE LABOUR HOONS like Steven Pound to turn up every day and week?
If you think about it that money goes towards paying for Labour Party Membership and donations to the party so basically the public with it’s taxes are funding the BBC who then go on to fund Labour’s continued existance indirectly. Well not quite seeing the fackers no full well that’s what happens and want it to carry on.
Ninth. Where’s the caption contest, sir? Over.
Danny’s always wound me, ever since he was in the SDP
Wonder if he fancies his chances at a safe Tory seat now with all the grandees tumbling?
I think it’s all a ruse. There is no such person as Daniel Finkelstein or Simon Heffer or even Stephen Pollard. They are all one person called Damian Finkerlard who was roughly assembled from bits of Bruce Anderson, Andrew Sullivan (in his pre-Liberal days) plus a hefty lump of Richard Littlejohn and adjusts his rants depending upon whether he is working for The Spectator, Daily Telegraph, The Times or a number of blogs that day. Photos are specially adapted in Photoshop to produce a minor difference in appearance.
If you want proof of this just try and get Heffer, Finkelstein and Pollard in a TV studio at the same time.
If ever there was a bloke that was assembled out of the odds & sods plus miscellaneous end of line, slightly damaged, badly fitting bits, it is bannanas Millepede, he looks like he was spawned from a small lost tribe of mountain inbreds who have very badly damaged DNA. Either that or he’s a result of a poorly controlled test tube experiment. Same mould as Peston, who got the experimental but malfunctioning voice box fitted.
methinks he doth protest too loudly. I can’t shake off the impression that Mr. Finkelstein has a few little secrets he’d like to keep secret.
Methinks he should be advised to keep quiet unless he wants to join the troughers up against the wall.
Yep.
I’m no fan of MacKenzie but he was right about the criminal tendency
I disagree – pay MPs more and don’t allow them to do any ‘consultancy’ roles either during or after their term in office. It is unfair to say there are many more qualified people out there; it may be true, but only a tiny fraction of those people are willing to actually _become_ an MP. In addition, many MPs would be earning far, far in excess of their MP salary in the private sector as many are, sadly, this country’s elite.
It’s a tricky situation, but I fear we are aiming our spite at the wrong target – there are bigger fish to fry if we want to talk about wastage…
Eh?
You bellend – bell end. Peenis. Tosser. Err.. that’s enough.
Sounds like another righteous has been let out of school early.
Being an MP is obviously a part time job or else none of them would have time to be ministers. £60k+ exes for a part time job sounds pretty bloody good to me. Personally i’d be happy for backbenchers to have second jobs – it might give them a more rounded view of the real world and we wouldn’t have to pay them any more for being an MP.
Sum up the amount in mis-claimed expenses we are talking about (and for the moment ignore the morality issues), and that value is many orders of magnitude less than the amount of money wasted in government departments paying outside consultants to duplicate the work of civil servants. Many of these consultancy firms happen to have ex-ministers and ex-MPs ‘advising’ them.
If money is the issue, then much of the bile being thrown about is wasted.
If morality is the issue, then the journalist who is without sin may cast the first stone.
Sadly, we elected them. It is strange that many of my high-earning, high-achieving friends are on the MP’s side in most cases. The Guardian reading, designer specs wearing, Leffe drinking North Londoner sees the issue as a threat to humanity.
Government departments will only tighten their belts when MPs do. The troughing in the lower orders is condoned so long as troughing continues at the top.
Oi,leave the Leffe out of this tosspot.
Johnny
It isn’t troughing in the lower orders of the civil service that is being referred to. It is throwing “programme” money at a variety of so called consultants, hired (without regard to any of the equal opportunities paraphernalia) on anything from £400 per day upwards to “deliver” on ill-conceived projects that any experienced civil servant could have predicted were doomed to failure.
Incidentally, there is a misconception among many co-conspirators that public sector workers have all “never had it so good” since 1997 and will slavishly vote Labour at every opportunity. This is far from the case and I daresay numerous co-conspirators are themselves current or former senior public sector workers. Correct spelling and sentence construction should arouse suspicion in the same way that comments like “piss of (sic)” arouse suspicion that Dolly Draper is still in posession of a broadband connection .
Another ex,
Fair point. Though the sums of troughing in the rest of Government beneath Westminster will be collossal as well. Consultants who are ex-troughers doesn’t help matters. Civil servants getting paid and getting consultants in to cover their responsibilities is effectively troughing because they certainly aren’t earning their money.
No thanks. Their pay comes from the Public Purse. If they want alternative work and roles, let them do it. It’s a free market – if they’re effective in their role, leave them to it. If they’re shit, then they’ll get found out – raising salaries is unpallatable at this current juncture.
Saying it will stop them ‘thieving’ or ‘claiming excessively’ is the wrong attitude to take. It’s like giving a thief a bit of a let off so they don’t keep at it – that’s bullshit. Stop it at the source – politicians know the deal when they enter the field of play, now and in the future. If they don’t like the pay then they can fuck off and get another job like every other citizen in this country. Might bring more respectable people to the table to do the UK’s bidding instead of the self-serving, bog bend cretinous fucking wasters that have taken you and my tax and spent it on their greedy self-servient lifestyles.
many MPs would be earning far, far in excess of their MP salary in the private sector
I very much doubt that. But in any case we are about to find that out in about a year’s time.
A consultant for McK, BCG, Bain, LEK etc etc or at any of the banks would be earning more than an MP. Many MPs did time at one of those places; in Boris’s case only a week!
How many MPs and ex-MPs would have lucrative consulting careers if they had never been on the inside in the first place? They cultivate valuable connections while in Parliament.
You are Danny Finkelburger and I claim my £10
What would Prescott do at McBain’s – make the tea?
Most MPs have come up off the tools, are second rate lawyers who might just be able to handle a conveyancing practice or are piss poor hacks.
Nobody uses these half arsed American management consultancies anyway. Wankers they are.
Nobody? How can one explain the high salaries they offer, the ability for them to _consistently_ attract the best people from the top 5 universities on the planet, and continue to get contracts with the top companies/governments on said planet.
Yes, I am a consultant and know about this. I fear many people dipping their oars in on this (and other issues) have less than appropriate backgrounds to comment with sufficient weight to back-up what they say (however correct it may be). Alas, in this game confidence is key.
We keep hearing this “MPs could get more in the private sector” line. Some of them are going to get the opportunity to prove or disprove this soon, aren’t they?
Suspect we may be hearing “hard up ex-MP” sob stories in a couple of years.
I seriously doubt that my ex student union administrator Labour MP Kevan Jones could earn more in the private sector.
He has voted consistently against transparency when it comes to MP’s expenses.
Not surprising he wants to cling on to his cushy number, I guess. He is in the best racket of his life. Short of winning the lottery, there is no way he would have it so good in the real world.
Stab ‘em all up mister
Only one way to do it.
Let them put what they think they are worth on the voting slip and let voters decide if that’s OK.
Pay the fekkers more ? FFS! coming from someone called Tristan, I wonder where your career aspirations lie ? I’ll bet yer daddy is a trougher of some kind.
Dickhead.
Mps use 50% of their time making problems where none exist, and the other 50% trying, not very successful, to solve them. No, don’t give them a rise let’s start the process of getting rid of them altogether. For a start why do we need 650 parliamentary leeches in Westminster anyway.
Don’t agree about getting rid of them.
They just need replacing with people who actually care about the people who elected them.
Guido was right to publish these stats on salaries. In real terms salaries buy no more than they did 30 years ago. Ordinary people work far harder just to pay the bills.
Meanwhile a small number of folks have made a very great deal – not from any talent, as a lot of city boys don’t have any – but from re-arranging the systems (corporate tax, selling dodgy investments) and ripping off anyone with a pension, ISA or other ordinary investment.
Guido’s blog shouldn’t stop at politicians. They have done wrong and should be punished.
But they are the symptom, not the disease.
Sorry typing too fast, meant the office of MPs is an excellent idea, its the individuals who have occupied these roles that’s the problem.
Dead right about Finkelstein. I was appalled by his defence of MPs last night. He has been deperately trying to shore up the troughers positon for weeks.
Shameful.
Has he and Mrs Dale been ordered out to do a damage limitation campaign?
Not sour grapes that the story went to the DT and not the Times? Nothing like pissing on someone else’s parade.
Office chat this morning.People were unbelievably angry at Darling’s personal tax scams.Scumbag should be prosecuted was unanimous opinion.No-one expects it in the slightest.
He’s complete gutter trash. Chancellor claiming for tax form filling and avoidance. Absolute wanker – you couldn’t make it up.
“you couldn’t make it up.”
Until recently, if you had made it up, you would have had to set it in some corrupt third world country where this sort of thing is endemic.
Now we all realise of course, as we see the mounting evidence, our political class are as base and worthless as any dared think.
Home Secretary, Justice Minister, Chancellor, Prime Minister, it just goes on and on.
Theft and fraud are crimes, where are the Police?
I see that the MULTI MILLIONAIRESS Lady Margaret Oppenheimer Hodge is in trouble.She has allowed her local Labour party to use her constituency office in east London gratis.She has of course claimed on expenses for said offices.This means that we the TAXPAYERS ARE SUBSIDISING THE LABOUR PARTY.
But the UK is a Third World country.
And I think that is where the anger is deepest – everyone knows they will get away with it.
Where’s Gordon?
Was last seen crying about his family in the Daily Mail in an attempt to win some pubic sympathy…
Last known sighting… sitting in the middle of the road in ten Drowning street with a pair of white underpants on his head and two pencils up his nose whilst shouting wibble to passers by.
Bayonets ready lads! No backs to the wall. Over the top-I’ll be right behind you
Hear Here Guido!
Don’t let us pay the troughing Hoons one penny more!
How’s about a campaign for them to be paid at double the AVERAGE salary in the UK – that way it is in their interest to make sure that:
*The gap between rich and poor is narrowed,
*That unemployemnt is low (Salary, not “Income”, there’s currenly 2 million zeros distorting the figures downwards)
*That the amount of income taken by the State is as low as possible for everyone
Let’s bring back politics to being a vocation rather than a career.
Kelvin should drop the finger and put on a tie.
Danny should get a haircut.
Finkelstein is one of the boys. He’s from the Parris/Fry etc circle who simply don’t care what the public think.
they are all elitists and anti-democratic
Which side does he dress?
cooee !
Anyone looking for me?
Guido – why would a successful professional earning over £100k p.a. want to be in Parliament?
It’s hardly surprising the place is full of time-servers, lobby fodder and petty thieves.
If you want competent people in the House, pay them as much as they might earn elsewhere. Pay them the median wage and you’ll get … median people.
Exactly. Well put.
So you are equating competence with salary levels? Complete and utter bullshit. Just because a particular job commands a market rate doesn’t make it intrinisaccly more valuable – Bankers were paid shed-loads, hasn’t stopped the economy going belly up.
MPs salary should be set a a fair level – the current seems pretty reasonable to me – there is no shortange of candidates at an election, and arguably, all of them are equally (in)competant. When we get to the point where they stand down to take on better paid jobs, or there are unfilled seats because of no candidates, then its maybe time to review the salary levels.
> Just because a particular job commands a market rate doesn’t make it intrinsically more valuable
Yes it does, in a market economy (MPs are in the extortion funded sector so their pay is not linked to demand).
> Bankers were paid shed-loads, hasn’t stopped the economy going belly up.
Bankers job is the allocate lending, the regulators job is to decide how much credit is created. To keep the credit bubble alive REGULATORS increased the amount of credit to silly levels. If you don’t believe me look at what’s happened to both interest rates and reserve requirements.
Top jobs generally don’t follow the laws of the market. Their holders are a merry-go-round of the same small number of people. From time to time, the curtains are parted for us, and we see that they’re actually a bunch of incompetents.
Oh come on, Citizenone.
Investment Bankers aren’t even handed at all.
They’re self centred and short termist.
Look at the last orgy of Mergers and Acquisitions – resulting in over geared businesses vulnerable to a down turn.
Then CDOs and all the other dodgy stuff they invent.
These people are well educated, and smart.
They KNEW the risks, but just didn’t care – they knew if they made a big enough mess someone else would have to clean it up.
Government had a chance to let them fail and start the system again. But they had borrowed so much they bottled it. A trick that’s been played at least three times in the last 20 years.
Right now thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands – are sitting on big bonuses in safe places, laughing fit to bust and just waiting for the circus to start again.
well they put Gp salaries up, and got them to do less work, so I suppose they think it is alright if they plunge their noses in the trough again
They do not get a median wage, so what is your point?
I smell a trougher.
Awaiting Moderation says:
May 29, 2009 at 1:09 pm
“Guido – why would a successful professional earning over £100k p.a. want to be in Parliament?”
To serve his or her country?
Not all of us are spivs you know.
I had the misfortune to see Finkelstein on newsnight last night and listen to his shite.
He was a complete and utter hoon.
He seems to think that the world would end if existing MPs got replaced by new ones. He’s using the same logic as brown’s “no time for a novice”, has missed the whole point on every aspect, and fails to understand what democracy is.
He’s under the impression that democracy means that you’re only allowed to vote for the status-quo, and not allowed to ever change anything.
Maybe someone should ask him if Obama never should have been elected as president as he didn’t have any experience of being president beforehand.
Bleating on about the poor old MPs “following the rules” and that fleecing the tax payer is fine as long as it’s not technically tax fraud, he’s a fucking twat.
wanker.
sour grapes I reckon; his paper didn’t get the scoop, so now he’s saying that the telegraph are, effectively, stirring up hatred against the ethnic minority known as “MPs” – he’s trying to class the telegraph as a terrorist organisation so that they’re not allowed to publish any more stuff.
The Fink’s viewpoint in a nutshell
“Democracy is giving the proles the privilege of choosing between a near-identical set of unenforceable promises once every five years. If in between whiles some of the proles squeak that this system might not be the full two bob then that is mob rule.”
The Fink is an onanist. He should be paraded around wearing a flourescent jacket, a pair of wire antennae with flashing hearts on the end and a placard round his neck bearing the word “knobhead”. Then he should be strapped to a lamppost and pissed on by every dog in England.
entirely, my friend, entirely.
Better if he was pissed on by every pig in England! Oink Oink! Unclean!
Why not – we seem to be being shat on by almost every MP in the country.
don’t vote for the status-quo, vote for the pink floyd instead; they’re much better.
you’re ‘avin’ a larf aren’t yer, mate???
Apologies for cross posting this.
Guido – seriously – I’m going to take a break from here (and the rest of the media)for a while – it is doing my head in the state of this country. No offence to you sir – it’s reading about the state of our great country is getting more depressing by the day.
I really really have had enough of all this now.
At first it was like “wow”, then there were further revelations that were “shock and awe” and now I am just totally f*cked off with the whole thing.
How Baroness Uddin can stand up and moan about social housing whilst defrauding not only the taxpayer of hundreds of thousands, but also some of her own ex-constituents who are desperate for social housing is beyond any sense of comprehension.
The woman is immoral and should be stripped of her peerage IMMEDIATELY and the police investigation needs to hurry up.
Those two tw*ts who were suspended from the HoL in the “cash for legislation” scandal. They should be booted out pronto and plod in for a corruption investigation.
The integrity of the people in the HoL is supposed to be without question. This is some of the most immoral behaviour I have ever heard of in this country.
Then there’s the MPs.
What a shower of sh!te.
The government are bringing in laws left right and centre not only depriving us of our freedom, but positive discrimination against the majority in the workplace.
What sort of f***ing idiots run this country?
Then they wonder why so many people cheat benefits or claim discrimination (Tarique Ghaffur or Dizaei or Shahrokh Mireskandari anyone) when they encourage that very culture.
That arrogant tw*t Malik claiming for a £2,500 home cinema, even Brown claiming for a flat when he had a grace and favour home.
For a party that is supposed to be for teh common good, all NuLab have doen is feathered their own nests.
How they have tha audacity to dictate how I should run my life is beyond me.
Suicide watch? Suicide watch? What about the public who are so f***ing depressed at seeing what a pile of sh*te this country has become.
I’m not anti-labour. I think people like Tony Benn (whilst I didn’t agree with him) were men of principle and went into politics for what they believe in rather than what they could get.
In Harriet’s own stupid words, “the court of public opinion” says your government is f*cked and good riddance.
Bravo, sir…
What a fine and eloquent sentiment sir. Make no apology for cross posting, this deserves to be published, broadcast and stapled to the forehead of every NuLab apologist as a blatant reminder of their crass opposition against the silent unrepresented majority. For the sake of your sanity I hope some relief in the form of total electoral failure for the government on June 4th will help.
Well said Sir.
Agree with every word.
But DON’T give up. For what it’s worth, when politics and the state of the country gets to me, I go and make a cup of tea, wander off to the workshop and lose myself in something totally unrelated to politics (and if Test Match Special is on, so much the better), or disappear for a walk (is there anywhere on the planet more beautiful than the British countryside in late May?). Listen to the birdsong, feel the warmth of the sun.
This is still the best country on the planet. The people are peeved about the way it’s being run, and are saying so. We’ve got elections coming up. Things will never be perfect, but they are going to get better. Stick with it.
And when all else fails, take the p*ss out of it!
Duck house with a plasma telly and mock tudor beams for sale. Very cheap, cash sale, obliged if you’d keep quiet squire….
O/T do you know Farrouk, great player??
Sadly, no relation.
“Stripped of her peerage immeadiately” – absolutely right.
You’ve hit on a major problem here which is the present day lack of consequences.
Fred Goodwin gets a knighthood for services to banking. A knighthood, symbol of an age of chivalry and defence of the needy. A title that used to have obligations of morality. He now appears his only service was to himself so the basis of his award has proven false. But does anyone get the knighthood off him?
Uddin’s the same – holding on to her peerage despite the fraud she’s committed.
And those two labour lord Hoons – found to be guilty of being prepared to take money to change the law. Their punishment – a suspension, a FUCKING SUSPENSION. They still get to call themselves lords and will soon be back there making laws over us and judging us in the highest court of the land.
We’ve got MPs with hands in the public purse – but can we remove them. NO. We have to let the media do it for us, and even then they hang on drawing full pay.
Even in the House of Commons – a crap speaker voted in by the MPs but even they could not get the opportunity to remove him when shown to be shite. They just had to embarrass him out of office.
All these are offices and positions awarded by the state on behalf of the people or by the people themselves. If you receive such gifts and are subsequently found to have let down state or people, your office and award should be easily removed with suitable punishment and reparations due.
Instead, we have immoveable bastards that continue to draw from our tax pot till the next election (and then walk off with a pension), wankers that should have a number after their name instead of a title before it and the joke, the FUCKING JOKE of a chancellor guilty of tax evasion and is still in place.
We have no power to withdraw the priviledges and gifts given in our name. Those awarded them know they can act without consequence.
Until we get the change to remove, to fire, to sack, to strip of title, we’ll continue to be shafted at every chance and be forced to sit in mute anger.
Give us these rights NOW or we’ll have to come down there and take them.
Does anyone agree with me that DF’s photo on his blog shows a thinner / leaner person than the chubby features that were on display on Newsnight?
Too many PORK dinners I fear with all those troughers.
I was just thinking that Dave’s starting to look a bit rotund.
No! Nein! Not a penny more. All of them (ok,most) declare they went into politics to help the unemployed, the downtrodden Blah! Blah! then fucking steal because they aren’t paid enough
So they are all campaigning to end fining companies for employing people??
The message is “If you paid us more, we wouldn’t have to be so greedy.”
Bullshit! Darling and Brown are underpaid? Blears? Pay them more? Now you’re taking the piss. What is the suitable salary for the “genius” leading us?
25p?
Just watched Kelvin on last night’s programme.
In one word : SUPERB.
Put him on Question Time.
I am SO jealous!!!!
Dont pay the fuckers a farthing, then they would have to get out and earn a crust like the rest of us.
Get out and clean offices to make ends meet.
Others have to.
And what was so wrong with the Corn Law, anyway?
The problem with Obama is that he has no experience of anything at all.
Can’t even produce a genuine birth certificate.
He’s from Chicago so he’s extremely experienced in hiding corruption.
Obama has just appointed an ex-VP of Citigroup called Susman as US ambassador to London !!
Citigroup has only cost the US taxpayer about $150 BILLION TO BALE OUT
But Susman was a HUGE Democratic fundraiser
Makes you wonder who Omaba really is
Just a pawn to be manipulated by the frauds on Wall Street who have ruined the US economy…
He’s experienced in being a miscegenated chancer!
Politics is public administration – it’s a bloody calling. If they want to work in the private sector they can but they won’t be having tea & cakes with the RAF or the Ambulance service or shouting the fuck out of some copper who’s fucked up one of their constituents.
It ain’t a job – it’s an opportunity to get paid for your hobby.
Not now, love.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer fiddling his taxes. You couldn’t make it up.
His department has given the tax man almost unlimited powers when it comes to extracting cash from Joe Public. I really want to see these turned on him now, as they would be for anyone else.
A three of four year long enquiry into his affairs, causing him and his family a massive amount of stress and legal expenses. Ruthless treatment from compliance inspectors, gleefully reminding him at regular intervals of the prospect of financial ruin and possible jail time hanging over his head if he does not cough up.
See how he likes it.
Hear, hear – but dream on, it’ll never happen. One rule for M.P.s and one for the rest of us.
It’s really simple. Use the same tax/expenses rules as any other job in the private sector. Pay an equivalent salary for the kind of skillset needed that would be found in the private sector.
A normal MP is basically just a cross between a travelling sales rep and a middle-manager. 60grand is about right for a basic MP. maybe 80 or 100grand for a minister, perhaps 120grand for PM.
As Kelvin said, there’s no shortage of people who’d like to earn that kind of money for that kind of job. The problem is that the people who currently hold those jobs are too greedy.
MPs: If you think you’re not earning enough with your expenses taken away, then fuck off and let someone else have a go. I know a lot of competent people who’d like a 60grand job where you don’t even need to turn up to work and get half the year off. (be a good job for teachers I guess; they’re used to getting paid for taking half the year off)
Isn’t it irrelevant what the mean national salary is, surely the relevant thing is what one has to pay to get high quality people and I would be happy to substantially increase base salaries if that meant that MPs were intelligent people.
Paying pee nuts/ monkeys etc ring a bell….?
The political class have a stranglehold on politics because by and large they no longer answer to us. More pay = better paid career politicians. I would rather see much worse pay and perks to encourage independently wealthy/successful people and those sponsored by unions, pressure groups and the to fill Parliament, and insist they are open about their financial support. Then we can all know where our representatives stand on matters rather than there being a massive body of interchangable grey men and women who no longer represent us as they are meant to.
Alternatively, put the power to hire and fire MPs back in the hands of constituencies with a recall mechanism and give MPs lump sums at the start of every financial year (Dependent on distance from Westminster) in return for full and published audits of expenditure. Then they can divvy up the money as they, voters can back or sack MPs as they see fit and MPs would have to be competent at managing our money for 12 months at a time. The expenses system is already a test of morals and many have been found lacking. Make it a test of competency as well and let voters weed out the pratts.
The job comes with little responsibility (having offloaded it all to the civil service, quangos, EU, consultants and whatever other unaccountable groups asked for it). You don’t need any qualifications. About half a dozen people stand for election in each consituency and loads more than that stand for selection so demand for the job is high. The Senior Salaries Review Board has found no evidence of MPs leaving Parliament because the pay is not enough.
Looks like the vote riggers are on the move now for the EU elections, Copeland council in Cumbria have decided to use unlockable and unsafe cardboard boxes to store the postal votes in even though they have steel lockable ones on hand.
Cardboard boxes just ready and waiting to be stuffed with fake votes and whats the betting that afterwards a convenient fire or accidental sprinkler malfunction will occur?
We knew that the bastards were planning a Zimbabwe style ballot rigging festival and it looks like thats whats happening here!
Does anyone else know what type boxes other councils will be using for the votes?
Steel boxes are meant to be used by the councils i think. Well they have been up until now.
If someone has a camera phone or digital camera sneak it in and get pictures of the cardboard boxes and sell them to the papers.
Cardboard boxes are easier to loose and damage than steel boxes so obviously this is the green light to vote rigging.
Since when does a high wage necessarily mean someone knows their arse from their elbow? Christ, we wouldn’t be in the shit we’re in if it did.
I’m sure most premiership footballers would agree with you.
Please add: their
*golden pension which others, including professionals have to fund themselves.
*London Costs Allowance – no receipts no questions asked for £7 500 tax free pa.
* other jobs – which they get ONLY because they are MPs and not because they are in any way SPECIAL I would like to know which MP has the most outside jobs, how many they hold and the income they derive from these jobs… my money is on William Hague having the most ‘consultancies’ and gaining the most income from these jobs which he gets as a result of being an MP.
Why am i paying for the interest on Camo’s mortgage when he has larg sums of money in the bank earning interest?
Isn’t that like owing a flat, renting it out for an income, and charging the cost of renting another to the taxpayer?
The issue isn’t with how much cash he’s got saved up or as equity, the issue is that a mortgage is supposed to be paid out of your post-tax income regardless of how much money you’ve got, and is definitely not an expense; it’s just living costs and an investment.
Give them expenses for staying at hotels if they don’t have a house already nearby at one of the locations (ie westminster or constituency), otherwise just let them stay where they already have/own. Rent/hotel bills are the only things that should ever be expenses on this front.
Mortgage interest (or capital repayments), council tax, utility bills, furniture, food etc should never be expenses.
Its also like receiving huge agricultural subsidies off the EU and its poorer members so you can ensure your farmers continue with their quaint but inefficient gallic farming methods that you find so attractive while having the money to build one of the best railway systems in the world and bankroll a state owned power generator that can buy its way into the markets of other nations to earn you a huge return on your money.
OK point made methinks. TA ….. DELETE>
As said many other places. . .
There are five types of people who can command 60K+ salaries.
1. Successful business owners who’ve built their own fortunes, often at the cost of personal financial hardship
2. Salesmen and Investors who often have to meet harsh sales targets to keep their job.
3. Good people managers with line management experience who’ve either worked their way up through a company and proved themselves through personal performance management, or brought their transferrable skills from another company.
4. Professionals who have spent five years in academia studying a single subject to become experts on it.
MPs are, at the outset of their careers, amateurs. They match none of these. But there is another category.
5. Entertainers and creatives. People who can come up with stories and diversions which individuals will pay for either financially, or with their attention (which can then be resold to those in category 2.) Their careers last as long as the people are interested in them, and then fade from existence.
I don’t WANT professional MPs, there are civil servants (4 and 5) who are paid to do this sort of thing. MPs are only there for one reason, to take the concerns of their constituency to parliament. It’s not a skilled trade.
Seems pretty apt to me.
Neatly put, sir !
or madam, I don’t mean to assume. I daren’t.
It’s an allowance. Not an expense. They are entitled to it as long as the Fees Office agrees.
This national mass hysteria reminds of the death of Diana Spencer, except it’s worse.
Envy-fuelled moral indignation from the small-minded.
Hi, Nadine!
If MPs had done more than just nod through eu and government legislation perhaps the outrage would have been less?
I take full responsibility, now fuck off
Dopey Shearer, Socialism was designed for you. The politics of envy.
You’ll feel at home with Labour Smelly-Socks.
Wanting more money is a fairly common vice from which I suspect most posters here suffer.
I suggest this is being looked at from the wrong end leading to the conclusion that our MPs are not worth two bob and are overpaid, sixpence would be more appropriate.
We should be electing good MPs and ensuring that they earn, as opposed to merely being paid, a wage comparable with a GP or the Head of a large school, and maybe the real reform needed is constitutional. If, as others have suggested, we could recall the lazy and inept’ who will inevitably get elected now and then, they would shape up a bit.
“Comparable with a GP or Head of a Large School.”
How many MPs are required to have 8 years of academic training in their subject and can be prosecuted for malpractice?
How many MPs look after a staff of 50+ and a multi-million pound budget?
Length of training and sue-ability is not a sole indicator of worth. There are thousands of GP’s and 600 odd MPs, so election to parliament is not easily achieved. We should set high standards, award decent pay and demand excellence. MPs with second jobs are fine by me, provided they still perform sufficiently well as MPs to keep those who elect them satisfied.
But aren’t they just going to vote with their party? It would be in their interest to do that no matter what their private beliefs. Why pay so much money for individual apparatchiks, and so many of them! In the real world they will vote the way the party dictates. What would we be getting for our money?
Cameron loves being the swaggering hero but behind the mask he’s about as dumb and sensitive as it gets. I’ve had the suspicion that all those accusations of arrogance, nastiness, and dithering he likes to chuck around are just him projecting his own faults and insecurities. This article helps draw this out.
Some people are calling this class envy and an ad hominem attack but that’s just cliche and cheap shot. It’s clear that Cameron’s intellectual foundations are built on insanity. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s also quick to be nasty and doesn’t like it if someone undermines his image. This is a matter of basic competence, teamwork, and ability to go the distance. What you do and who you are matters. I don’t want some over-promoted deadwood middle manager running the country, tah.
Cameron’s basic claim to leadership is just a collection of carefully arranged buzzwords and stroking. He beat his way to the front of the queue and relies on a constant media presence and uncritical media to keep that position. He bolsters that by continuously making bold and positive claims about himself and briefing like mad behind the scenes. It’s pure marketing that hides the fact he has no product and covers up the long-tail of unreformed Tory MPs: turbo-Thatcherism with added bounce.
This drivel is surely computer-generated? Substitute “Blair” for “Cameron” and the post reads the same. Pap.
Thank you for providing the impetus for my new world record
Don’t you actually mean Gordon Brown? You describe him so perfectly in your tirade about DC, who seems to me to be doing pretty well. I’m pleased to see him going around the UK and actually talking to people, ahead of the elections next week.
But pray tell, where is our great, esteemed leader; the man who saved the World and stole my pension? The great Gordon who has saddled my kids with debt for the next 30 years by “investing” his way out of the recession. Oh yes, I forgot, Brown is still in his bunker rehearsing the tractor figures for next week’s PMQs. The “Do Nothing” PM who has ruined this country with his criminal incompetence, whilst all his bent Labour Cabinet troughers are left undisciplined as he hopes and prays that the BBC will pin the blame on the Tories.
Labour is finished and you know it.
Charles, there’s no point now in flogging the same old dead horse. Please, do come up with something a bit more original.
You may go now.
Better that than having a mental defective like Brown in charge isnt it?
Brown is a coward and a lying bully, the manipulative schemer has more flaws than the fucking empire state building.
Oh Charles, you’re back.
I’ve news for you.
The baby’s yours.
Hardwidge, you are talking through your sphincter again. Do shut up, there’s a good chap. You recently said you would leave this blog and yet, here you are, still spouting your drivel. Another broken promise – no need to guess which lot you support.
The idea of paying so much money for career lobby fodder is absurd as well as outrageous. What are these people on?
The reason for the “mob Justice” attitude among us,is due to the frustration over the lack of law being applied to MPs,and the closing of ranks by arses like Finkelstein.
I agree with a lot of this, but MPs expenses cannot simply be lumped in with salary (leaving aside abuses that should of course be rooted out). Non-London MPs do need to travel and stay in London quite a lot and this does not come cheap however it is worked out.
The best MPs work extremely long hours and have an amazing grasp of detail on many subjects. It is a mistake to try to get MPs too cheap, just like anything else.
This is a good opportunity to revise the system and get rid of abuses. But we are wasting our time trying to find an ideal system of government – there is no such thing. The most important thing is transparency. Please remember that FOI was introduced by the hated Blair even though he also tried to hobble it.
The problem is, there doesn’t seem to be any ‘performance management.’ Which is kind of understandable, you can’t take a degree in MP’ing. The difference between those who are successful and those who are merely lucky enough not to get caught – the difference between those who do good for their constituency and those who just wear the right coloured rosette is immaterial. The only metric that counts is once every five years or so.
Whether they have a whip at their back, of course, is a different matter.
This is getting beyond I fuckin’ joke. Every time I turn on BBC/Sky they have another Tory in their sights. It is never a Labour MP. If they went after a Tory one day and Labour the next fair enough, but no, day in day out we move from one Tory to the next.
What the fuck are Cameron’s media team playing at. Cameron’s out there this morning saying Cash has serious questions to answer. What? Dozens of MPs rented property from family members. The way Cameron talks you would think Cash was the only one. For Christ sake Gordon Brown claimed for his London flat when he had a free home at 10 Downing Street. Why do the media not have pitchforks out chasing him?
Is it too much to ask for a modicum of balance in the reporting. Last night for about 5 minutes the Telegraph led with an article about a Labour MP, no sooner was it up than they replaced it with the Cash story.
When are we going to hear about Eric Joyce? Last week the Daily Mail pretty much got him to admit he had received £160000 in expenses he was not due. Yet since then absolutely nothing has been mentioned. The Keens, virtually the same as the MacKay/Kirkbride’s but I have heard no outrage.
There are clearly dark forces at work here, but instead of fighting his corner Cameron is sending his troops over the top like some World War 1 General, while Labour sit there playing cards and let Al Beeb shoot Tories on sight.
I told you i was a tictacal genius
Gordon, aren’t you missing inaction?
Yes indeed.
The BBC in particular, Sky not far behind and the MSM all cowtow to the system because they are all so dependent on it. They cannot hold them in total disregard because they wouldn’t gain anything. So they have to give an ‘appearance’ of angst without throwing their ‘baby’ (access, attributes and rewards) out of the bath.
The BBC strive for what they call ‘balance’ which is interpreted as support the government line on things. It’s okay for them because they, too, use and abuse our money. Others have to earn their income.
There are very few capable journalists and investigators because the rest are all corrupt as well.
Exactly, Anonymous. What about Cyclops? I say it again – WHAT ABOUT BROWN AND HIS PROPERTY SHENANIGANS? WHY ARE MORAN AND KIRKBRIDE IN THE SHIT WHILE BROON’S TAX FIDDLES ARE IGNORED? The only answer is a supine press and useless journos. We know the BEEB is biased, but there are others who can take on McDoom. The One-Eyed Scottish Bastard, with Bliar’s help, has robbed, despoiled and destroyed Britain. Fuck him and his appalling party. Let’s get the shit – FAST.
Good post, anon, and spot on. Slowly and surely the Beeb and their liberal media friends are steering this whole scandal to match their mindset of Nulab = good tory = bad.
Quite. Dave “Terminator” Cameron has fallen in the trap. By trying to appear tough, all he does is keep his naughty boys and girls in the spotlight while we keep shtum.
Why stop at Wesminster? We need to kick over the whole fucking applecart – all the cosy, backslapping,taxpayer-funded non-jobs-for-life : Lords,MPs, quangos,BBC,Civil Service and all the rest of the parasitic tosspots. Where is our Cromwell, our Robespierre or our Lenin?
MEPs allowances:
DaveA says:
May 29, 2009 at 12:52 pm
There seems to be no shortage of people who want to become an MP, so should the salary be reduced? If you do not like your remuneration, then get a job elsewhere.
Shouldn’t that read: then get a proper job elsewhere.
In other news:
Sri Lankan army accused of massacring 20,000 Tamil civilians in final assault
More than 20,000 civilians were killed in the final government onslaught on the Tamil Tigers according to confidential United Nations estimates, it has been reported.
That’ll help their overpopulation problem abit then.
So what?
You can’t say that, I’ve got copyright!
Judging by this post, I seem to be at least as angry as Guido is today – I think it was the revelation that MPs have charged the taxpayer for private tax preparation expenses – something the tax office tells everyone, including MPs, that they must never do (even though it represents a considerable expense for small business people up and down the country).
And now they want another £150,000 from us as they sit it out until they inevitably thrown out in the General Election. I didn’t know it was possible to keep getting angry once you’re already as angry as you’ve ever been.
Election now petition http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/GoToCountryNow/
“I always vote at my party’s call
I never think of thinking for myself at all”
(with apologies to W.S. Gilbert)
and somebody is suggesting they get more money for doing that?!*
They should be put on army officer’s pay scale, starting at £31,000 for a new MP and with yearly increments.
This nonsense of everyone, no matter how experienced, being on such a large salary attracts the wrong lot.
Interesting you should say that.In 1990, when I was sent to the MoD as a newly promoted Squadron Leader (Major in army parlance) my pay was the same as an MP.Today, if that happened, I would be way behind an MP’s salary; so much for their cries of having fallen behind in salary terms, quite apart from their phenomenal “allowances”.
higher pay for MPs to make up for their reduced future opportunities to fiddle their expenses.
Reminds me of a dockers’ strike way back, they wanted a pay rise because the introduction of container shipping pretty much eliminated the opportunity to steal from cargoes !
Good analogy there George – this is exactly what they are saying when they want more money…
The statistical terminology is a little confused. The “typical person’s weekly earnings” refers to the median income – half of us earn less than this and half more. Blastland (source) terms this the “median average”: perhaps this is the convention of social scientists, but it encourages confusion with the “average” or “mean”, which is the numerical average of the earnings of all of us in work. A useful way of thinkink about the mean is to imagine the point at which the graph would balance were you to rest it on your finger. Where data is skewed to the right, as this is, the median is less than the mean (think of a small person balancing a large person on a seesaw), so this differentiation is important. It is important in at least two other respects:
firstly, the median (or possibly the mode – the point on the x-axis where the graph is highest) is the more useful measure for the man in the street. The mean is pretty meaningless for personal reference;
second; the mean is affected by the importation of extreme values and this doesn’t seem to be desirable unless the presenter of the data wants to appeal to envy, or we wish to compare incomes between countries. For example, were Jenson Button to move back to the UK from Monaco, his £8 million a year would raise the mean more than it would the median and would be an irrelevance to Joe Public, who knows that Jensen earns more than him.
Finally, off on a bit of a tangent, the use of “below 60% of the median (not average) household income” as a measure of poverty is misleading. It is not a measure of poverty but rather a measure of inequality. Your household income may increase yet you may drop below this poverty line.
Dan the Fink was a disaster at CCO and has continued to rake it in via Times and BBC.
In keeping with historical precedent of naming noteworthy parliaments, this one should be called “The Parliament of Thieves”
Their wages should reflect the current drift in responsibility for making laws, and the reduction in control of the country, year on year, they exert as a result of the mission creep of the EU.
Their wages should go down,and there should be less of ‘em.
Any gay tories wanna chat..?
Bliar (1) gone [ √ ]
‘Third Way’ bullshit gone [ √ ]
Bliar (2) gone [ √ ]
Gorbals gone [ √ ]
Mr ‘2 jags ‘n mock tudor shags’ Prezza gone [ √ ]
Blind ‘Shagalot’ Pugh gone [ √ ] back [ ] gone [ √ ] back [ ]
m’Lud MincyBum gone [ √ ] back [ ] gone [ √ ] back [ ] gone [ √ ] back [ ]
Cinq-Bellies going . . . . going . . . [ ]
Baroness Udder of Gravy-Train [ ]
‘Neo-Endogenous’ bullshit gone [ √ ]
Parasitical + verminous MPs [ ]
‘Britain-best-placed’ bullshit [ ]
Mad Jock McSnotty, the Kirkaldy Twatty [ ]
OTHERS :
Arselickers [ ]
Arsewipers [ ]
Jobsworths [ ]
Quangocrats [ ]
Filthy infected hospitals [ ]
Local Authority claptrap, waste, and mindless interference [ ]
AlJaBeeba [ ]
EUSSR [ ]
British ‘envy of the world’ crap educashun + exam system [ ]
Junk qualifications [ ]
Banal Job Titles [ ]
Rubbish ‘Universities’ (sic) [ ]
Thought Police [ ]
Bin Inspectors [ ]
Compliance Officers [ ]
Finkelstein has never been correct about any important issue, ever.
What do you expect from SDP fodder?
He is obviously looking to become an MP, but not on the poverty pay available currently, oh no, not good enough for the great and important Dan Fink.
Funnily enough, Iain Dale argued for a pay rise for MPs too, when he was attempting to be selected to be one.
Purely coincidentally of course.
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their sties with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there’s lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.
© HARRISONGS LIMITED
Saw Finklestein on Newsnight. He wants to be soft on the politicians. Thinks the world will cave in if we get shot of the lot of them (lets give it a try). Where is he coming from??? What’s his cut??? The last thing we need is someone arguing for that. Some of these journalists want to make their reputation by saying exactly the opposite to what every one else thinks. It’s his type who will give the MPs an excuse not to do anything about the expenses racket. Prats!!!
I’m guessing that’s the average MP’s expenses as mine claims over £400 a week just for his mortgage interest.
It would be interesting to see individual MPs plotted on that scale.
MEPs are about to have their salaries reset to a fixed amount across the whole of Europe. Up until now they have always been paid at a rate equal to their national parliament’s MPs.
Now the EU has settled on paying MEPs at 84K euros per year, which is about the same as UK MPs get now. More justification for NOT giving them a pay rise! If it’s good enough for the EU, it’s good enough for our little piggies.
Read and learn
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2009/05/jane-griffiths-exposes-the-whips-on-expenses.html
If this whole saga is making you grate your teeth, tear your (remaining) hair out and really p*ssing you off, it might be as well NOT to read this. You really couldn’t make it up……
If you follow this sorry tale all the way back to its roots, its safe to say, at the very heart of the matter and with no contradiction audible from any quarter, put simply and with the gravitas that these matters demand, frankly, its unquestionably, and we use the term repeatedly for effect, unquestionably, Margarety Thatchers fault! And John Birt as well.
In addition, it has become apparent that certain sections of all media are in some way and indeed in many ways unable to accept that we, The BBC, are not influenced by the likes of Marr, Robinson etc. Such appointments and voting records are closely and independently monitored by the LP (Shepards Bush Branch) which by anyones standards is more than this country could possibly deserve. I’d just like to say a few words now about our friends, Gordon and Sar. . . .
Yes but did anyone see my wifes legs at 6 o’clock?
CONGRATULATIONS
Kelvin is bang on the money. They are a bunch of nose-bagging crooks. Finkelstein can whine as much as he wants. It makes no difference. The public know what’s going on, and the swine will all pay at the ballot box – though they should also be shackled in chains and thrown into Oubliettes.
Is Daniel Finkelstein the same twerp who joined the Tory party in about 1996 (you know, when the sleazy party wasn’t Labour)?
The same guy who tired spinning in 1997 that the Tories might stop Labour having a majority in Parliament?
The same guy who told an audience of bloggers in about 2005 that it would never catch on as a political weapon in the UK?
And the same guy thinks that being pompous is a substitute for having any common sense or intellectual principle?
Yes do highlight the discrepancy between the earnings of most of the British people as compared with the MPs who are supposed to represent them. The MPs basic salary of almost £65,000 approaches 3 times the salary of a normal person living in Yorkshire, or Lancashire, for example.
So if these MPs need two homes, they have ample money to fund those out of their basic salary, as most people have to fund one home on a third of the MPs salary.
Thus, an MP funding two homes on treble the normal salary, will still have one normal salary left over to pay for their own food, entertainment, gardening requisites, duck islands, and perks.
Thanks for providing this valuable public service.
In hindsight, it will seem preposterous that anyone could ever have believed the lies of the organizing criminals who have systematically infiltrated and taken over our political system.
Your ‘MP’ is more likely to be the fixer of some corporation, or an Agent of Influence of some foreign government, than they are to have anything other than a token interest in dull constituency affairs.
They will cling on till the very bitter end, beyond which only main force can hope to restore the legitimacy of government.
We have a problem of far too many new laws being introduced. The more MPs are paid, the more they will feel they need to “produce” and since all they produce is new policy and new legislation, what we really need to do is pay them less.
Hoon is just a wastaspace, so nobody notices when he blends in with the wallpaper and says nuffin, but I don’t see how Darling can survive this. Just fluffing his eyebrows and pretending he’s not there won’t hack it. At some point he’ll have to stand up and say something about the economy. And when he does…