A TaxPayers’ Alliance/ComRes poll (report) asked 101 MEPs and 1020 members of the British public their opinions. One of the statements respondents were asked to agree or disagree with was a bit of a trap for those on the Brussels gravy-train
MEPs should pay a lower rate of income tax than the people they represent;
The public were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea that MEPs should enjoy lower taxes than their constituents, by 82% to 15%. 10% of MEPs were openly in favour of the proposition of lower taxes for themselves, whilst 75% were publicly opposed. Not so bad you think, they on the whole accept that all should be equal before the law.
Except MEPs have already voted for themselves a special tax rate. They say one thing to the public but vote in the opposite direction in the EU Parliament itself.
UPDATE : The BBC also polled the British public, finding that most people think most MPs are corrupt and when asked whether they trusted MPs to tell the truth, 20% said they did and 76% said they did not. Which shows the truth that of the saying “you can fool some 20% of the people all the time”….
62% said they believed MPs put their own self-interest ahead of the country and their constituents. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time…