Epic WTF

No-one wants to pay MPs a market rate so you end up with Nadine Dorries and Andrew Bridgen. Which reinforces the desire not to pay MPs a market rate.

I think there are something like 5-10,000 civil servants alone earning more than an MP and that before you go out to the NHS and other bodies.

Presumably those people have talent, skills and experience though.

Presumably those people have talent, skills and experience though.

The skill/talent you need most as an MP is for confident blagging - seems to be transferable to most jobs in the private sector at least.

Its a job that might make you delay getting cancer treatment so you can vote and comes with a very non zero chance of being murdered by the people you work for.
We get what we pay for.

Yeah let's not forget the benefits package.

Best beer terrace in London

Cheapest beer terrace in london

Few MPs are professionals.
There are some lawyers and some medical doctors, but for each of these,
there are are many more with nothing beyond a degree in PPE,
and seemingly no aptitude to develop life skills beyond panhandling.
[Yes Owen Paterson, I am thinking of you].

Where is the register of CPD completed by MPs?

Want to pay MPs more? Let them show they are professionals by studying for
post-graduate qualifications in management, public policy, negotiation, or even Peace Studies.
The obvious option would be the Open University.

Nothing beyond a ppe degree and access to the old boys network

It's a bit chicken and egg though. Pay a sensible amount and you might attract more capable people.

You’d need to drain the swamp first. Highly talented professionals tend to avoid deeply unpleasant work situations, especially ones that play out in public view, and politics today has become a game that requires a nearly psychopathically strong stomach.

You’d need to drain the swamp first

100% this.

Plus for the Tories at least (and I don't think they're entirely alone here) central party office, the local associations and selection panels all combine to vet out all but the toadiest soundbite regurgitators from shortlists.

Cheaper to build a modern parliamentary building than attempt to renovate the existing HoP.

I still maintain a sensible amount is the average wage for the country, grifting cunts are serving the people and should know what that's like. I don't care if you're not attracting the "best of the best" with that system, you don't need someone who's amazing at politicking to do the job well, they're certainly not at the moment, they're backed up by people who should be paid well. MPs and ministers need compassion and a connection to who they serve and a desire to improve people's lives.

Our current crop have all those qualities, which they apply liberally to themselves, their benefactors and their future employers.

I disagree - you want people who can afford to dedicate themselves to the role. It's fair to say that the average wage in the UK comes with issues of housing and food affordability which would do the opposite for political mobility (ie people who didn't need the wage would be the only ones who would do it).

What I do think is absolutely sensible it to tie MPs salary increases and pension contributions to national performance so increases in minimum wage / average wag/ GDP etc. Incentivise them to improve outcomes for the population at large. That or tied to public sector wage increases as a whole.

That won't solve rich cunts like Sunak who don't give a shit about the salary but it's a start.

well if nothing else it might help some mp's realise that even earning a very decent wage the cost of living is ridiculously high, and there are millions out there struggling to survive. and maybe instil a little empathy in some policy and decision makers.

bah who am i kidding.

Didn’t they have to pay their own way in Victorian times? Not sure it helped much then.

Tory MPs will just take on more lobbyi...er I mean advisory roles for corporations or presenting jobs on GB news.

you want people who can afford to dedicate themselves to the role

I know many dedicated people who would love to earn as much as the average wage. Free public transport and an MPs block of flats next to wherever parliament gets moved to and a free work canteen that has healthy but basic food and no booze seem like reasonable and sensible perks and allowances to allow work to be done. The average wage should be higher, and maybe it'll be a decent incentive to make it so if you're earning it.£33k is enough to live on though, if it was a proper, respectable job, rather than an old boys club and pathway to dodgy, behind the scenes power and jobs, then people who wanted to do a good job would be happy to earn it, if it's not enough to entice people then they're not in it for the right reasons. Obviously lobbying and other jobs will need to be properly sorted out too.

Dennis Skinner refused to take his entire salary. He took what a skilled craftsman would earn.

you want people who can afford to dedicate themselves to the role

Aside from the cost issue, which can be argued multiple ways, the ability for people of modest means to be parliamentarians simply doesn't exist. I don't think that's down to pay at all, and quite frankly half of the bizarre private sector managerial contingent that these arguments are created for aren't exactly the kinds of people we'd like to be in positions of power anyway.

There's clearly a distinct democratic deficit in regular life, largely in the economic sphere, and in that vacuum there's less of an ability for regular people to become political. If normal people have a distinct hatred for basically every politician, which seems to be the case, the answer to that is not to create more distrust through further inequality.

There are plenty of people on low wages in this world who would be absolutely fantastic as an MP but who would never consider it at all. I think we need to ask why that is, rather than fall upon standard financial incentive arguments.

what a skilled craftsman would earn

Dude, have you seen the cost of fitted cupboards? He must have been using 1990s figures to have foregone a £.

just realised this is the wtf thread, not the politics thread, so fill yer boots at [weirdo wtf link removed]

I apologise

For the 5 people that don't known what 4chan is, I wouldn't click that link when you are in the office.

Or in front of family.

Or on your own.