MPs at it again - Channel 4

CLAPTON

Lets suppose you were a married MP with two children.
You are required to spend 4 nights per week in London for 25 weeks per year (I don't know the exact number of weeks but just guessing)


would consider it reasonable that

a. you were allowed a bedsit in a cheap area
b. you were allowed a bedsit in a reasonable area
c. you were allowed a 1 bed flat
d. a place where you family could join you


do you think that the arrangements you choose would attract a good quality type of person ?

Graham_Devon

I don't really care what they stay in, and no ones saying they should stay in a bedsit.

I just take offence to the fact that they are making money out of it.

Did you watch the programme clapton?

grizzly1911

CLAPTON wrote: »

Lets suppose you were a married MP with two children.
You are required to spend 4 nights per week in London for 25 weeks per year (I don't know the exact number of weeks but just guessing)


would consider it reasonable that

a. you were allowed a bedsit in a cheap area
b. you were allowed a bedsit in a reasonable area
c. you were allowed a 1 bed flat
d. a place where you family could join you


do you think that the arrangements you choose would attract a good quality type of person ?

Why not a hotel room that's what I use to get, albeit for shorter stays.

Probably a 1 bed flat.

Does it attract a good quality type of person now?

grizzly1911

Graham_Devon wrote: »

We all know the answer....because they have their snouts [STRIKE]in [/STRIKE] a the t[STRIKE]r[/STRIKE]off. .

Edited for you.

It does make me wonder how they have the time to hatch these schemes. Then again if they aren't going to the jungle.

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Why not a hotel room that's what I use to get, albeit for shorter stays.

Probably a 1 bed flat.

Does it attract a good quality type of person now?

The timescale is in my view, very important.

personally I wouldn't wish to be absent from my family for 4 days a week and for say 25 weeks a year.

I would not want my MPs to do that either.

One has to form one own opinion on the matter.

Whether you are content with the current government ministers is a matter for you to decide, but providing poor living conditions is unlike to attract a decent quality of cabinet ministers.
Unless already rich, would any middle business man /women be willing to live like that for that amount of time each year, year after year?
Would you?

vivatifosi

CLAPTON wrote: »

The timescale is in my view, very important.

personally I wouldn't wish to be absent from my family for 4 days a week and for say 25 weeks a year.

I would not want my MPs to do that either.

One has to form one own opinion on the matter.

Whether you are content with the current government ministers is a matter for you to decide, but providing poor living conditions is unlike to attract a decent quality of cabinet ministers.
Unless already rich, would any middle business man /women be willing to live like that for that amount of time each year, year after year?
Would you?

I agree with that. But is it the fact that they have second homes that people find objectionable, or the fact that they play the system: flipping them, staying somewhere else and renting them out, getting them done up when not eligible, etc?

I don't mind them having a second home. It's the fact that they try to find loopholes and that some - a not inconsiderable number - appear on the take.

Some of the things they are doing are absolutely right: saying no to increases in Brussels, cutting spending here. But they can't do that and expect that lens not to be held up to them and trying to hide the results. For that's just hypocrisy.

MacMickster

A good leader (and that is surely what their constituents expect MPs to be) should always lead by example.

It is difficult to lecture big business or wealthy individuals about the morality of looking for legal loopholes in the taxes acts, if the people doing the lecturing are at the same time looking for legal loopholes in the expenses regulations.

It is difficult to persuade a nation that "we're all in it together" when the people who tell us that appear to only be in it for what they can get out of it.

Sadly, we still have far too many of the "greed is good" brigade sitting as MPs, who have the same misplaced sense of entitlement that plagues so much of British society today.

CLAPTON

MacMickster wrote: »

A good leader (and that is surely what their constituents expect MPs to be) should always lead by example.

It is difficult to lecture big business or wealthy individuals about the morality of looking for legal loopholes in the taxes acts, if the people doing the lecturing are at the same time looking for legal loopholes in the expenses regulations.

It is difficult to persuade a nation that "we're all in it together" when the people who tell us that appear to only be in it for what they can get out of it.

Sadly, we still have far too many of the "greed is good" brigade sitting as MPs, who have the same misplaced sense of entitlement that plagues so much of British society today.

whilst what you say may well be true
the situation here is whether or not an MP should own a second property in London that is let out.
yes or no

if yes then should it be legal or illegal to rent is out to another MP?
yes or no?


if my view it is reasonable that an MP can own rental properties and that I see no particular reason why they should not rent out to another MP.

MacMickster

CLAPTON wrote: »

if my view it is reasonable that an MP can own rental properties and that I see no particular reason why they should not rent out to another MP.

And in my view, any reasonable employer would seek to minimise the amount that employees can claim to only additional costs necessarily incurred by their employees to perform their duties.

In this case, it would make sense to provide accommodation which MPs could choose to use free of charge when in London on parliamentary business. If they chose not to use this facility then they would be expected to bear the additional costs themselves.

The issue of security is always raised whenever this is suggested, however I am aware (and I'm sure that any self-respecting terrorist organisation could easily find out) that many MPs rent apartments in a particularly nice development with its own security on the edge of the congestion charging zone. There is no reason why they could not all be obliged to use this particular facility which would remove any suggestion of impropriety.

MPs would then be free to own and rent out as many properties in London as the trough would allow them to buy.

SailorSam

CLAPTON wrote: »

personally I wouldn't wish to be absent from my family for 4 days a week and for say 25 weeks a year.
I would not want my MPs to do that either.

A lot of people take on jobs were they have to be away from their families. Probably they don't like but accept it as part of the job.
Our armed forces id the one that first comes to mind but then you have men working on oil rigs and numerous others.