Pay Rise for MP's (£65,000)

paulofessex

Just how do they have the nerve to award themselves a pay rise when so many others are having pay increases frozen and others face redundancy.
£65,000 for being an MP excluding benefits and exspenses, nice if you can get it l suppose

JasonLVC

As I understand it the independent monetary committee have recommended a 1.5% payrise but that the MP's are expected to not take the payrise.

Begs a few questions :-

1. What sort of monetary committee could even consider a pay rise?. The government are quick to criticise private sector monetary committees that set salaries of bank bosses at high levels and yet here we have the same happening.

2. It'll be political suicide if any MP acccepts this rise - although I suspect they'll quitely accept and back date the 1.5% sometime around Christmas once everyone's eye is off the ball.

3. The timing of this is probably just an annual event, but still, who thought about making this announcement so close to an election?. Perhaps, cynically, the MP's can make themselves look good by rejecting this paltry rise in solidarity with the people (whilst increasing the amount of expenses they can reclaim instead).

CLAPTON

if we want to attract mature intelligent independantly minded people who have proved themselves reasonable successful in a career then we need to pay MPs a lot more than 65k.

However given the 'outrage' that this award will cause (and similarly the intrusive nature of being in political life) goes a long way to explaining why most of our MPs are as they are.

Sadly until the electorate grow up and take a a realistic view of these matter we will have either 'career' politicians or rich guys only governing us.


I'ld must rather pay an attractive salary 100k plus secretary plus sensible living allowance etc etc and get better people.

Spartacus_Mills

paulofessex wrote: »

Just how do they have the nerve to award themselves a pay rise when so many others are having pay increases frozen and others face redundancy.
£65,000 for being an MP excluding benefits and exspenses, nice if you can get it l suppose

Without wishing to be pedantic (which means I am going to be pedantic) they have awarded themselves nothing. The pay review board is independent.

However I agree with your sentinent and that of Dave Prentice from Unison. In a time when pay restraint is called for it would not hurt for the MP's to set an example and turn this raise down.

torontoboy45

JasonLVC wrote: »

As I understand it the independant monetary committee have recommended a 1.5% payrise but that the MP's are expected to not talke the payrise.

Begs a few questions :-

1. What sort of monetary committee could even consider a pay rise?. The government are quick to criticise private sector monetary committees that set salaries of bank bosses at high levels and yet here we have the same happening.

2. It'll be political suicide if any MP acccepts this rise - although I suspect they'll quitely accept and back date the 1.5% sometime around Christmas once everyone's eye is off the ball.

3. The timing of this is probably just an annual event, but still, who thought about making this announcement so close to an election?. Perhaps, cynically, the MP's can make themselves look good by rejecting this paltry rise in solidarity with the people (whilst increasing the amount of expenses they can reclaim instead).

I don't blame you for being a litle cynical. nothing surprises me about parliament after the antics of the past few yrs.

so I'm not defending mp's when I ask: what calibre of mp do we want in the future? talking informally to my constituency mp last yr, she told me that hers was normally a 70hr week and often longer. no sympathy from me - it comes with the territory, but it's still a big week. and she's still at it when parl. is in recess with constituency business.

would I do it? 70hrs? with all the press villification/public revulsion? for £65K? no thanks. I've got a life and some sanity to look after.

to attract the right kind of person for the job the pay needs to be upped - the old adage about paying peanuts and getting monkeys never rang truer.

drc

"We are all equal but some are more equal than others" - George Orwell, Animal Farm

maninthestreet

CLAPTON wrote: »

if we want to attract mature intelligent independantly minded people who have proved themselves reasonable successful in a career then we need to pay MPs a lot more than 65k.

Well, it's not as if no one wants to be an MP anymore, is it?

JasonLVC

torontoboy45 wrote: »

I don't blame you for being a litle cynical. nothing surprises me about parliament after the antics of the past few yrs.

so I'm not defending mp's when I ask: what calibre of mp do we want in the future? talking informally to my constituency mp last yr, she told me that hers was normally a 70hr week and often longer. no sympathy from me - it comes with the territory, but it's still a big week. and she's still at it when parl. is in recess with constituency business.

would I do it? 70hrs? with all the press villification/public revulsion? for £65K? no thanks. I've got a life and some sanity to look after.

to attract the right kind of person for the job the pay needs to be upped - the old adage about paying peanuts and getting monkeys never rang truer.

Yes, the cynic meter was twitching off the scale on this one.

But the base salary is a red herring isn't it?. They get £65k which is taxed as a salary and then can claim for (at least previously), everything from jaffa cakes through to their sprawling property portfolios. I realise the fiddlers were a small minority tarnishing the others, but the point still stands that a MP gets paid a pittance but then makes up for it by employing their family members via their office allowances and all the other tricks which means there true salary is substantially more (and mainly tax free).

I'm all for paying them £200k but with zero expenses - so the MP has to operate like everyone, within their means. Need a train to London, best pay up for that, need a house closer to work, better buy a cheap flat....like the rest of us have to do.

mustrum_ridcully

Wasn't one of the reasons for the whole expenses mess not actually paying them enough (expenses were used to top-up the salary) because Daily Fail types would be "outraged"?

I tell you £650,000 wouldn't be enough to make me stand for as a MP and try and govern this country. Where people want an uber-nanny state when it suits them and no nanny state when it doesn't (on exactly the same topic). Where people want brilliant MPs but want them to be paid less than many local council chief executives.

"In a Democracy, the people get the government they deserve" - Alexis de Tocqueville. How true... how true...

B33fy

drc wrote: »

"We are all equal but some are more equal than others" - George Orwell, Animal Farm

MP's and bankers, pigs at the trough comes to mind.

CLAPTON

maninthestreet wrote: »

Well, it's not as if no one wants to be an MP anymore, is it?

truely so

but check up on whether they have any substantial experience of running any real business

whats David Camerons experience or Osbournes experience or running a business or even of having been a departmental manager ?

If you cut out the people who have mainly spent their life as political researches or lawyers there won't be too many left.