'I support MPs' 1st class train travel as long as it's at a 1st class price' blog

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

I have several points on this...

- terrorist magnet, probably, but I reckon the whole of Europe (and USA) is now a terrorist magnet. What is wrong in them staying in a holiday inn then?

- high calibre of people??? anyone who abuses the system as it has been over the expenses scandal is inherently dishonest and does not have the taxpayers interests at heart. Have they no conscience? Just because a ripe cherry can easily fall into your lap doesn't mean you are justified in taking it. My daughter (who is 16 and taking her GCSEs this year) gave the incorrect amount in today for her school dinner and was accidently 15p short, the dinnerlady 'let her off' but such was her conscience that she went back and rectified the situation because 'it didn't feel right'. Maybe she will be classed as having the calibre to stand for election!

- As a taxpayer and a staff nurse in the NHS I am absolutely outraged about the expenses scandal. Comments a la Winterton serve to annoy and exasperate. I would love to get these politicians on our ward and get them to do a shift, then they would really know what 'serving the consituents' really means! I have put in hours and hours of unpaid overtime to get the job done over the years and it is a bitter gall to hear gripes about 1st class travel never mind moats and duckhouse problems!!!

Martin, I think you are great and I respect that you are trying to have a reasonable debate about this but there are many, many people out there that are incensed and boiling mad about this and won't vote for anyone because 'they are all the same' and my worry is that this will enable fringe parties to gain a foothold (such as the BNP at the European elections).

God help us in the election

Peter_Lanky

I don't think the 'flat rate' of living expenses idea would go down well with the bureaucrats. I used to be a civil servant, and whenever travelling away from the office requiring an overnight stay, we used to be paid a flat rate (perhaps around £60 by today's prices). We could then decide whether to slum it for £20 a night and a fiver for a kebab and a sandwich, pocketing the difference, or spend the full amount on something more plush.

The bureaucrats didn't like this little bit of profit we made, so changed the system so we had to have a pre-booked hotel (booked by a third party profit making organisation at almost full price of course), at around £80-90 a night, plus a small allowance for food.

No prizes for which is the greatest cost to the taxpayer, but it stopped anyone making a small profit so that makes it OK. _pale_

Of course, a sensible bureaucracy would use it's power to bulk buy rooms for MPs at favourable prices, so no profits AND the best value for the taxpayer. Unfortunately we don't have a sensible bureaucracy.

silvercar

We have 600 odd MPs of which only 1 or 2 will get to be prime minister. The pay for the top jobs needs to be high enough to attract good calibre into politics. The pay of the ordinary MP only needs to be enough for a reasonable standard of living.

smala01

I just wonder if those who are complaining have ever had a job with any responsibility!

Its next to impossible to do work in standard class - especially if its a busy train. If you are tasked to make decisions that effect a lot of people or concern lots of money then the marginal cost of a first class upgrade is hardly going to break the bank.

Smala01

cit_k

Argh, Martin just went down several notches in my view of him..

Any MP friends martin? Any agenda behind sucking up to the theives and trying to make out their actions are not worth bothering about?

Edit to add: would that agenda have anything to do with why the benefits board is also so pro the system and does not allow like the truth to come out? Any reason they wont allow the news about a documentary exposing a certain government appointed private company's practices?

MSE_Martin

cit_k wrote: »

Argh, Martin just went down several notches in my view of him..

Any MP friends martin? Any agenda behind sucking up to the theives and trying to make out their actions are not worth bothering about?

Edit to add: would that agenda have anything to do with why the benefits board is also so pro the system and does not allow like the truth to come out? Any reason they wont allow the news about a documentary exposing a certain government appointed private company's practices?

Your comments are outrageous, and insulting and if Im honest have left me quite angry.

No I have no MP friends. The implication that if someone doesn't agree with your view they are somehow tainted or besmirched by nepotism is a very narrow minded one. Disagree with my view by all means, but your attempt at demeaning it is disgraceful - do all the other people in the post above who agree have a vested interest too?

Maybe I should ask "do you know anyone who's trying to be an MP - is your view a deliberatley cyncial one to change the status quo." I suspect you'd laugh at the stupidity of such a suggestion, but its as relevant as your comment on this.

I believe in the importance of the democractic process and think we need to allow it to continue without an overblown incident being allowed to ruin it further.

As for the benefits board - it isn't there to promote any message other than helping people live legitimately within the system. This is a MoneySaving practical site, and we're here to help people do that within the year.

There is no site view on the system, and whether it should be changed - though we do allow discussion of it in the discussion board. To do so in the benefits board, leaves people who need help intimidated and dicenfrachised from being able to discuss their situations - and that is my ABSOLUTE priority and everything else including people, like I suspect you who argue "freedom of speech to express my opinion" is secondary.

This isn't a political discussion forum its a practical moneysaving one - there are many other places out there you can discuss politics, but if you want to do it here - do so within the rules and not on the benefits board.

And as for "Any reason they wont allow the news about a documentary exposing a certain government appointed private company's practices? " I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.

Martin

harryhound

segarrett wrote: »

Hoorah, someone talking sense! I totally agree with the idea of fixed allowances and higher salaries. Although I know many good people are and want to be MPs, I've never understood why anyone would choose such a hard job for so little pay compared with what they can be earning elsewhere. If they are a good MP, they could certainly be earning a lot more elsewhere.

However I can't see allowances coming in. I've seen this suggested in companies, where managers can see that their staff only have an incentive to claim everything they can get away with and have advocated reasonable allowances instead. Unfortunately many people get hung up the fact that some people will live frugally and pocket the reminder of the allowance. They prefer to pay much more overall than allow a few to "make money" from the system. Utterly stupid, but I think endless research shows that humans often make this kind of decision.
.

The taxation system mitigates against allowances in the private sector. Every invoice claimed on expenses usually has a 17.5% kick back for the employer in the form of VAT

Similarly; I cannot see HMRC, in a society where most people pay about 30% (*) and the sort of people getting expense allowances pay 40% or 50% plus, will allow allowances to be given without bills having to be presented.
So we end up with a system that encourages those "on expenses" to throw other peoples money about in a way they never would were it their own.
We also have government departments where there is pressure to spend this year's budget and a bit on top, because if you don't it will get cut next year.
Too much government is the problem, not the solution.

Those on the inside of the money printing gravy train, tend to be made arrogant by power - I believe there is some evidence that, in men anyway, chemical changes take place in the brain. (You end up with a Robert Maxwell character)
Perhaps we should have a system where MP's/local councillors have to retire after (say) 20 years service?

Harry

(*) Don't be a mug - National Insurance is the tax that the Treasury like to increase because most people, including most of the MP's, don't understand how it works.

cit_k

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Your comments are outrageous, and insulting and if Im honest have left me quite angry.

No I have no MP friends. The implication that if someone doesn't agree with your view they are somehow tainted or besmirched by nepotism is a very narrow minded one. Disagree with my view by all means, but your attempt at demeaning it is disgraceful - do all the other people in the post above who agree have a vested interest too?

Maybe I should ask "do you know anyone who's trying to be an MP - is your view a deliberatley cyncial one to change the status quo." I suspect you'd laugh at the stupidity of such a suggestion, but its as relevant as your comment on this.

I believe in the importance of the democractic process and think we need to allow it to continue without an overblown incident being allowed to ruin it further.

As for the benefits board - it isn't there to promote any message other than helping people live legitimately within the system. This is a MoneySaving practical site, and we're here to help people do that within the year.

There is no site view on the system, and whether it should be changed - though we do allow discussion of it in the discussion board. To do so in the benefits board, leaves people who need help intimidated and dicenfrachised from being able to discuss their situations - and that is my ABSOLUTE priority and everything else including people, like I suspect you who argue "freedom of speech to express my opinion" is secondary.

This isn't a political discussion forum its a practical moneysaving one - there are many other places out there you can discuss politics, but if you want to do it here - do so within the rules and not on the benefits board.

And as for "Any reason they wont allow the news about a documentary exposing a certain government appointed private company's practices? " I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.

Martin

I dont think they are outrageous, they are after all questions, not statements of fact..

Surely you yourself cant deny that you must have thought people would question your motives for the article, after all you even said yourself in the article

And before anyone suggests it – I promise I have no intention of ever standing. It was something I once wanted, but I swore off it years ago. I couldn’t cope with the stress levels and my skin isn’t thick enough.

so the thought of an agenda being questioned was already on your mind, and you tried to get rid of the question before it was asked.

However, people are still likely to wonder if there are other reasons...
Hence why I asked.

Usually people dont get so defensive over simple questions, especially when they have demonstrated they understand the likely hood of people questioning any agenda, it sometimes means a raw nerve has been touched if they get defensive.

However, I will take your word for it that their is no agenda, if you say their is none.

But can you not see how it appears odd that on a money saving site, one that took the banks on, one that is all about spending wisely, budgeting etc, you seem willing to want people to forget that the people in charge are corrupt, and give reasoning like they deal with larger amounts of money, and the amount they stole is small compared to what they deal with... Surely if they are corrupt, it means the bigger sums of money are much more likely to be mishandled.

As for the benefts board, it is your board, and you can set the agenda, but I personally feel that it defeats its objective as people are not free to discuss their problems, as the problems tend to point out the flaws in the system, and when that happens, and others back up that the flaws exist, posts get moved out, so people dont see the truth of the situation, but as you say, that can be discussed in DT instead, even though thats not the place people looking for help will go to......

The other thing, you would have to ask the mods/board guides about, someone else asked permission to post about a documentary that is being researched that will expose the benefits medicals as being unfair/unethical etc, and they were denied the opportunity. Surely exposing unfair practices is what this site is all about?

Any way, there is no need to get angry, MP's expenses are a hot subject, and anyone who posts support for them is likely to get questioned, you are maybe just in a position where you are not used to being questioned perhaps as much as others, site owners, tend to get support for their views from people, regardless of whether they are right or wrong, its a bit like people suck up to management, it can distort their views and make them not used to people questioning them....

harryhound

The_MoneySavingKid wrote: »

Bankers are paid by private companies.
GP's and Judges are in the majority of cases, paid by the taxpayer and are a public good who provide a merit good.

GP's are self employed business men, working for (by and large) one employer who publishes a set scale of prices

Judges are lawyers - another group of self employed - who by a mixture of experience and recommendation from their peers get the job of referee between two opposing teams of lawyers to settle disputes or sometimes to penalise criminal illegal behaviour.

Both the medical and the legal people have to pass tests of intelligence and probably need some family assistance to finance their protracted periods of training.

It is difficult to say if our judges give good value for money?

("Who are the beetles?")

harryhound

voiceofreason wrote: »

Lucky they don't all work together in the same big building next to main roads and rivers and plenty of places from which an attack could be launched - then we're really be screwed!

.

That is why everything is being monitored by CCTV systems, it is now surrounded by a 4ft wall of concrete slabs and patrolled by gun toting police, with reinforcements hidden up nearby side streets
And those are the ones in uniform?!