"Generation Rent" now on the Wacky Backy

lisyloo

Like it is now you mean?

I mean how it should be is NOT like it is now.

To be fair requiring them to spend their weekdays in Bristol, Hull or Stoke will put quite a few of them off.

I didn't suggest any of those - although Bristol is a perfectly good city if you avoid the rough parts.
I suggested Wiltshire which is rather nice on the whole (Swindon is about 1 hour from Paddingon by main line rail) although it was just a suggestion, not a detailed reserached study. As I said it has airfields already (Lyneham has a pretty long runway I think) and is very close to the M4 as well.

Well of course, you're in London and neither you nor your employer, despite the expense and basic living conditions, have any intention of swapping for an ex-Army base in the middle of nowhere even though you'd have a garden in the week.

I would if we could both find a suitable job in the area.
My employer doesn't give a t*** about the living conditions as they aren't local.

It's the London 'bug' where the sufferers list people and businesses that could move out although curiously it's essential that they and their business stay.

I'm happy to move.
Unfortunately I don't control where the work is.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

A similar point but most people with a track record of success would be earning more than £67k. Not only would they need a conscience they'd also have to be willing to take a pay cut.

MPs are not forced to become MPs.

If they wish to earn more than 67k a year, and feel they can achieve that, they are as free as the rest of us to go and persue that. Although many people I know who are very successful (doctors etc) are not even on that, so not sure what benchmark you are using as "successful".

I don't get this argument that MPs "might" be earning more "if" they worked in a different job.

Someone in the military might be really really good at football....but he chose the military..... Should he be paid more because he might have been paid more as a footballer? It would appear you would think so. Now, if he had been forced kicking and screaming, then fair play. But compensating someone for their own decision? bit much IMHO.

All those in the NHS, the Police, Navy, Doctors, Teachers....they "might" well be earning more "if" they had chosen a different career too.

Should they all be compensated for the "possible" loss of earnings should they have chosen a different path too?

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Someone in the military might be really really good at football....but he chose the military..... Should he be paid more because he might have been paid more as a footballer? It would appear you would think so. Now, if he had been forced kicking and screaming, then fair play. But compensating someone for their own decision? bit much IMHO.

It's a silly analogy. In my opinion £67k isn't sufficient pay to attract people who we expect to represent constituents and make decisions profoundly affecting our lives.

Fine for David Cameron and George Osborne but they're independently wealthy and I doubt you'd consider them as representing you. Likewise after the election 30% of parliament will have been privately educated.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

It's a silly analogy. In my opinion £67k isn't sufficient pay to attract people who we expect to represent constituents and make decisions profoundly affecting our lives.

I did suggest I'd not be against a pay rise for MPs if they could no longer claim the lavish expenses do now, but you simply wrote off my comment with a flippant "the ambassador is spoiling us" remark and something regarding living in a bedsit, which was never anything I suggested.

We have to remember 67k is just their pay.

For most people, out of that pay, they will need to pay for their own clothes, meals, parking for work etc etc.

An MP though, does not. They can claim their meals while at work, claim for parking charges (even if they are only 2 miles from their first or second home), claims their expenses for getting to work (the rest of us can only claim for going to other premises, not our commute to work). Diane Abbot, for instance had claims upwards of 2k ion a year for taxi fares to and from parliament (her office) and her second home in London. None of us could do that. We could only claim any travel from the office to another location.

So it's 67k PLUS lavish expenses, which could easily bump up their pay a few grand a year.

That's why I suggested I'd be all for a payrise, so long as they are given accommodation to use or a an accommodation allowance. I don't believe we should be paying interest on their mortgages and neither should we be paying their property taxes.

If MP's did not want to use that accommodation, they can of course pay for whatever they wish for.

As for the silly analogy bit, I don't see how it's silly. You suggested they could earn more doing something else and therefore should be compensated. Well so could many people....but none of it is guaranteed....it's all assumptions.Top level cabinet members will walk into high paying jobs....but the run of the mill MP?

wotsthat

Maybe we need 600 of these..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-31679475

Don't think I'll bother being an MP. Don't fancy the pay cut or having to worry about the DM exposing me for putting a meal deal and an extra kit-kat on expenses on the way to a meeting. The potential employers seem a bit odd too - they want champagne performance on a lemonade budget.

No wonder so many oddballs are attracted to the job.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

Maybe we need 600 of these..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-31679475

Don't think I'll bother being an MP. Don't fancy the pay cut or having to worry about the DM exposing me for putting a meal deal and an extra kit-kat on expenses on the way to a meeting. The potential employers seem a bit odd too - they want champagne performance on a lemonade budget.

No wonder so many oddballs are attracted to the job.

Thing is, you are flip flopping from one extreme to another.

Someone describes to you (twice) the sort of accommodation they talking of (houses, with gardens) and you describe them as "barracks" and even go as far as suggesting lisyloo wanted them "moving to and living in" them.

I suggest that the accommodation around here for servicemen is often houses as I can see what lisyloo is describing, though there are some flats / bedsits (there are for those passing through, bands people who stop over for a week and the like) and instantly you ignore the houses and only look at the bedsits, suggesting I want MP's in bedsits.

I talk of lavish expenses, property taxes on expenses, huge taxi bills, and you respond with some made up nonsense about kit kats and meal deals.

All you are doing it going from one extreme to another to avoid actually discussing anything anyone has tried to put to you in a discussion you are partaking in.

Makes it all a little pointless really.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Thing is, you are flip flopping from one extreme to another.

Someone describes to you (twice) the sort of accommodation they talking of (houses, with gardens) and you describe them as "barracks" and even go as far as suggesting lisyloo wanted them "moving to and living in" them.

I suggest that the accommodation around here for servicemen is often houses as I can see what lisyloo is describing, though there are some flats / bedsits (there are for those passing through, bands people who stop over for a week and the like) and instantly you ignore the houses and only look at the bedsits, suggesting I want MP's in bedsits.

I talk of lavish expenses, property taxes on expenses, huge taxi bills, and you respond with some made up nonsense about kit kats and meal deals.

All you are doing it going from one extreme to another to avoid actually discussing anything anyone has tried to put to you in a discussion you are partaking in.

Makes it all a little pointless really.

All of the ideas proposed make it less attractive to be a politician.

Once you get over the 'if it's good enough for me/ them' attitude ask yourself who you want to attract to politics and how you achieve it.

Of course this is a housing board so there's an accommodation focus but the idea of moving to an ex forces estate near Bristol or Hull are absolute nonsense and are more about people's attitudes to politicians than realistic alternatives to London as a centre of government.

Loughton_Monkey

Graham_Devon wrote: »

....I talk of lavish expenses, property taxes on expenses, huge taxi bills, and you respond with some made up nonsense about kit kats and meal deals...

I don't think he made it up!

He could well be referring to the incidence of the diminutive Hazel 'Chipmunk' Blears, the former Labour MP for Salford.

Feeling hungry (I assume) one evening she decided that the taxpayer should cough up £2.50 for a Kit Kat from the minibar. Almost certainly, the item could have been found more cheaply by the act of wandering to the local 'open all hours' shop.

This is all serious stuff, Graham. In 50 years time, history will record the recent recession with particular reference to the concurrent depths of triviality to which vast masses of the population and media can sink when they are ruled in a Nanny State. A state in which a handful of right-minded individuals just want our rulers to 'get on with it' and make this economy strong again. A state in which wealth creation commands 99% of effort as opposed to whinging, doom-mongering, immature, apron-hanging gripers wanting a bigger slice of a cake they didn't help to bake, and even resented being made in the first place.

Perhaps you should relax a bit. Maybe have a lie down. Then look up "Irony" in the dictionary. You'll find it between "Ignorance" and "Irritating".

lisyloo

In my opinion £67k isn't sufficient pay to attract people who we expect to represent constituents and make decisions profoundly affecting our lives.

I think it's loads on it's own, without the extra expenses.
Extra expneses for doing the job should of course be covered but it sounds lilke there's added perks which most of us would have to cover out of taxed income.
If I have lunch at a customer site then I have to deduct my normal lunch costs (that's HMRC rules).

I put that amount in here for an MP
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17543356

Your wage is $8,210. The world average is $1,480.
Your wage is 268% of the United Kingdom average and 555% of the world average.

To me it seems like a high wage.
Yes - some people (a tiny minority) might be able to earn more as a CEO. I don't think we should be exclusively looking for those people and we don't want them to come only for money anyway.

Happy to disagree but by any statistical mesure it's a HIGH salary in the UK and even VERY high.

I don't believe the public sector can compete with private salaries e.g. that of CEO and I think we don't want people going into public service to be overwhelmingly motivated by mopney.
We may just have to disagree on that wotsthat. I respect and welcome your anticipated different opinion as I like my thinking to be challenged, but I can't see how it can be remotely equitable otherwise - we do want them to be "in touch" after all.

wotsthat

The higher the wage the more people will be motivated by only money, the lower the wage the more likely it is that politics will be dominated by the independently wealthy.

Maybe it's a red herring and a minor factor - I am rather suspicious of people who want to enter politics in the first place. Probably because I don't understand their motives.