‘America’ isn’t the reason - not everyone in America is rich! And I’ve heard this from British people too, such as the poster above who agreed with Anne Widdecombe that ten times the national minimum wage is not ‘a living wage.’
The salary we’re talking about wasn’t a central London salary, for a start. Even in Central London, £40k is a high wage (it’s hard to look up average wages for London because the figures are so skewed by a few really high earners). Unfortunately, salaries don’t rise just because costs rise. The cost of living in London is not that ridiculous after housing costs, anyway.
Yes we are. I have six houses and a yacht to moor at the jetty behind each.
I was kidding before too, by the way. Anne Widdicombe aside, I think what Rayne Man was getting at is that while it’s obviously a living wage, it might not be a wage commensurate with what they’d make in the private sector. Of course, that’s a rubbish argument, because you don’t get hono(u)rs or ambassadorships to St. Kitts in the private sector.
You most certainly do get honours in the private sector; how on earth do you think MPs arrange their cushy directorships for their retirement?
Widdecombe’s point earlier was taken somewhat out of context, by the way. She was specifically speaking with regard to the ability to maintain a second home, which is a necessary thing for an MP whose constituency is outside London. £65k may sound a lot, but it certainly isn’t enough to maintain a London residence as well as a main home. So to this end, either MPs should be paid enough to be able to do this, or they should indeed have an allowance to enable them to do so. The problem is not with the principle of the second homes allowance, but in the gaming of the system that has gone on to varying degrees. Clearly duck houses and other such fripperies are blatant abuses, while the various flipping shenanigans verge on outright fraud, but it would seem daft to deny that MPs do indeed incur unusually large housing costs for perfectly honest reasons, and that this needs to be addressed in some manner.
In general, though, our MPs’ basic salary is relatively low by comparison to other rich-world countries, and the current expenses scandal is a reflection of that. Nadine Dorries (a truly dreadful Tory MP) actually said something interesting recently, which was that when elected in 2005, her intake were sat down by the claims office and told, “this is an allowance, not true expenses. The idea is that you claim it, and we are here to help you do that.”
I strongly suspect that she is telling the truth, or very close to it.
I disagree, in part. The DWP expects jobseekers to be willing to commute for 90 minutes each way per day. Why should it be different for MPs? That basically takes care of the whole SE of England. If they need to stay overnight they can book a hotel room, just like everyone else. If their position is sufficiently important, they should have a grace and favour home provided by the state.
MPs not in reasonable commuting distance are a different matter; perhaps their constituency could buy the house instead?
I don’t believe that UK politicians are totally different from their Australian equivalents. The pay isn’t great but there is a lot of tax free stuff, travel and expenses.
This is similar to (as an example) a judge who could make a lot more in private enterprise.
And there are those who go beyond the pale.
I think there is a significant difference between the situation in the United Kingdom and the situation in the United States and Australia, namely, that a large proportion of the territory of the former is within commuting distance of the capital.
The salaries and reimbursements for elected officials should be sufficient for them to be able to operate but they certainly don’t have to be competitive with the private sector. It’s public service. People entering into it should be willing to take less compensation.
Again, I think the real issue is monitoring and accountability.
I don’t think the comparison with jobseekers is particularly apposite. When you’re talking about using taxpayers’ money to pay people for doing nothing, I think it’s reasonable to expect a fair bit of effort to find a job in return. By contrast, many MPs could almost certainly earn more in the private sector, so the situation is almost reversed; they are lowering their personal earning power to do an important job for the taxpayer. Consequently, providing them with the means to do their job effectively can’t really be equated to a handout, but is rather an incentive.
Similarly, I see a lot of comparisons with the minimum wage, and they seem needlessly populist. Our MPs have one of the most important jobs in the country; I would like them to be able to carry it out effectively, and think they should be compensated appropriately. When parliament is in session they do work long hours, and I don’t think slapping a 3 hour commute on their day will help them govern particularly well.
It might make us feel good to give MPs minimum wage and make them commute for hours, but we would end up with people doing the job for the wrong reasons, and only able to do so if they were already of independent wealth. The response to this scandal shouldn’t be a hair shirt for our politicians*; it should be transparency of pay.
*Although tar and feathers would work for some of them…
Dead Badger, while I agree with most of what you say, I think there are quite a few politicians around who have their position simply for being party hacks. And they wouldn’t cut the mustard in the outside world simply with this background.
I am afraid I have little respect for politicians- the good ones deserve the accolades but there are quite a few who are nothing more than deadwood (you decide the good ones- I can’t).
Of course there are (in fact I said as much in my aside), but I don’t think their existence should form the basis of our relationship with politicians.
I think rather than proving a broader point about MPs’ characters, this saga really just exposes what happens when self-regulation combines with opacity. While the bleatings about it’s “the system” that has failed are incredibly self-serving from the mouths of those who abused it, I really do think that for many, behaviour is far more a result of the incentives to which one is exposed than of some core of character.
It’s no use bemoaning the failure of morals of the political class, and again, while it may make us feel better to punish the current lot by instituting iron rations, it’s not going to make us any better governed. We need a system within which it’s not possible to condone and conceal the sort of behaviour we’ve seen. Better behaviour will follow only as a result of this, not in response to tabloid teeth-gnashing and a few deselections. This is why I refuse to see Michael Martin’s obstruction of FoI requests as a minor part in this whole story; while those who take advantage of the system are obviously reprehensible, the person who seeks to perpetuate it causes far more damage.
There is an interesting little story in this week’s Private Eye:-
Last September the Western Morning News had to pay a certain Tory MP £10,000 in damages (plus legal costs) after claiming that the MP had played fast and loose with the expenses system and had milked it of thousands of pounds. And who was this MP? No other than Antony Steen, to be heard in the “everyones jealous of me” sound clip featured above. I wonder if he will be gracious enough to pay this money back to the newspaper?
It appears that the newspaper had good evidence to back up its story, but after being threatened by the (in)famous legal firm Carter Ruck (or Fuck as the Eye calls them) the paper had to back down and issue a grovelling apology.
Why is Anne Widdecombe pointing out that £65k isn’t enough to maintin two homes? Nobody’s suggesting that MPs far outside London should have to pay for a house in the capital.
The gall of the man is quite astounding.
I’m not so sure that most MPs would earn more if they weren’t MPs. Most of them are career politicians who have barely worked in any other field since university. Besides, thanks to their positions as MPs most of the do earn a lot more than their official salary.
Is there a formal procedure by which sitting MPs can be kicked out of the Commons without being forced to resign and without HM having to dissolve the government? I presume you’re all semi-familiar with impeachment over here thanks to Clinton, Lewinsky, blue dress, et al…
