You couldn't make this up could you.....we're all in this together.

[SteveBentley]

I listened to Radio 4 the other week and someone said that if a candidate changed their name to 'Above none of the' then it would appear as none of the above on the ballot paper......I do find the compulsory voting idea funny, please chose Eton clone A, B or C or we will fine you.

 

AIUI the words "none of the above" cannot appear on the ballot paper. Somebody tried to stand for the "None of the Above Party" in 2010 and was told he couldn't.

[foofighterjim]

As always the most apt thing has already been said:

 

"Government is another way to say better than you." - Corey Taylor.

 

Taken from the lyrics to Omega by Stone Sour.

[pcstru]

I think this thread is dancing around the central issue. As with the http://www.edugeek.net/forums/behind-red-door/128005-pay-schools.html thread, the question is "what type of people do you want to attract to the role"? Then set the level of pay from there.

If I remember back to young political activists I knew, salary would have been the last thing on their mind. I'd imagine some of them getting into the house and being slack jawed in surprise "they PAY me too!". Politics has to be a passion in and of itself. The debate on salary is largely specious; at least as far as influencing 'quality' is concerned. You don't get candidates in for selection asking for advice on how they can make ends meet on the salary and when might it go up - even conservative candidates! People don't go into politics for the salary nor should they.

As has been already said, since the current level of pay is way below the potential earnings of that type of well educated, skilled professional, it's hardly surprising many don't fancy a second career in politics.

And yet so many in politics fancy and find a second career (and a third and fourth) as consultants and directors. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that but if an MP says "well, I don't earn enough as an MP - with my talents I could be earning much more", then go earn more. They presumably do actually have a choice. Would their consultations be in such demand if they didn't have a seat and the influence that comes with that? Perhaps we should just be open about such things, pay MP's *nothing* and "F. Urquhart - Conservative, sponsored by Bank of Thieves, Big Weapons Inc, McFatBun, Pickpocket Pensions" could appear on the ballot paper. Why should you be an MP if you can't even raise enough from sponsors to run?!

 

What is clever is the way the political machine is playing the electorate on this. They have set up a donkey to kick "well, we don't actually set our own salaries you know, that's all done by an independent body". Now they can practice faux outrage when faced with an 11% rise for themselves! We look on while they kick the donkey and they invite us to sympathise with them about how bad it looks that this independent body has come up with a rise! That's surely a trick worthy of a Francis Urquhart? Well, we might think that, they couldn't possibly comment

[Roberto]

How does making good accommodation available make the job worse? In most jobs, when you have to stay overnight, the company organises a hotel. That hotel is most of the time a cheap one - Ibis, Holiday Inn etc... Not the Ritz.

 

There's no reason such accommodation can't be nice. There's only 650 MPs.

 

I wouldn't want to stay long term in a holiday inn myself, which is what you'd effectively be asking a MP from, say, Newcastle to do.

 

But yes, there's nothing wrong with decent, but not luxurious, accommodation. I wasn't getting the impression that was what the person I replied to had in mind though.

 

I'm a fan of the idea of putting MP pay up to £100k, and scrapping *all* allowances.

 

Pay rises should be an average of the country's pay increases. If the average pay increase is 1%, they get 1%. If the average pay falls by 1%, their pay falls by 1%.

 

MPs should not be treated differently simply because they are in 'power'.

 

The pay rise was supposed to be about giving them a decent payrise in return for removing most (all?) expenses, which would arguably put them on precisely that footing. As for treating them differently, or not, because they are "in power" I think they should all be given what they need to do the job well. If they need to be treated differently because of the nature of the work they do in order to do their job as well as possible, then giving them less than they need seems a lot like cutting off our noses to spite our faces.

 

Still feels like a kick in the nuts to those of us having to deal with 1%, I know. I'm no better off than anyone else here in that regard... but the idea of giving a decent wage to the people running the country and cutting off their chances at making crazy expense claims in return is fundamentally a good one imho.

[Theblacksheep]

voting using Facebook?

 

do you want to make the use of Facebook mandatory too?

 

Almost as bad as a US military company running the census.

 

 

I feel MPs shouldn't be allowed other jobs and no payrise either. People should want to do the job in hand, not cream off it.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Theblacksheep

[mthomas08]

Each time I see "Pay peanuts get monkeys" this morning I heard it on ITV and all I thought was that perhaps we have been paying monkeys peanuts. If this is all about attracting better MPs then surely everyone should be made redundant/replaced so they can actually get no more monkeys.

 

Is this pay rise going to fix the attitude of some MPs

Are we going to get better value for tax payers money

Are they going to fix a lot of the countries problems better and faster then before

Are they going to spend more time working and not worrying about their second homes or their ipads

Are they going to resort to getting credit cards like the rest of us to pay for "extras"

Are they going to push out the door anyone not doing a good enough job to earn the 11%

 

Can I go on?