In the news

you at the back, is that hand raised or are you scratching your ear ?!

I seem to recall that VB did a survey of the LFGSS membership that had wage data?

MPs aren't paid enough. If they were they wouldn't go out whoring themselves to big business.

Judges are paid a fortune so they can't be bribed. MPs should be the same.

Pay them £150k a year but say they cannot have any other earnings. That would attract the right people.

£60k for the importance of what they do isn't anywhere near enough, which is why you get the proliferation of the already rich and crooked gits.

An extra £60m on the wage bill is nothing if it meant the right people could afford to do the job.

MP wages are kept artifically low by the fact that people are so easily outraged by their representatives earning multiples more than they earn down t'pit. Their wages are miniscule compared to a half-decent lawyer, accountant, middle manager, IT contractor. So we end up with a Parliament disproportionately populated by people of 'independent means' i.e. rich fucks. Might as well still be the C19th.

All of this in spades, especially the highlighted bit. Plus reducing the number of MPs.

The point about having a disproportionate number of independently wealthy parliamentarians is also an important one imo and it's not something you're going to solve by decreasing their wage.

Just an idea I had but could you have a system where their pensions were in/linked to UK Government bonds to link to the future success of the country?

^ I was about to say the same thing otter, and I'm 'daaan saaarf.

The reason we have so many rich MPs is more to do with the mess that is campaign funding - it's difficult to take the risks with job security and spend enough time campaigning unless you have a serious amount of personal funding behind you. Anyone who thinks you can't scrape by on £60/70k is delusional, but there are serious problems with access to candidacies for people with 'normal' amounts of money

I'd like a few more MPs who realise that £60,000 is extremely good pay indeed. What kind of a fucking fantasy world do you live in where that is not a high wage?

It's not a high wage for the responsibility and importance of the job. It's a pitiful wage.

My mate runs a branch of Toys r Us and earns about that. It's a toy shop. He is paid as much for running a toy shop that employs 40 or so people as an MP is for governing 15,000 people.

It's insane.

It's not a high wage for the responsibility and importance of the job. It's a pitiful wage.

My mate runs a branch of Toys r Us and earns about that. It's a toy shop. He is paid as much for running a toy shop that employs 40 or so people as an MP is for governing 15,000 people.

It's insane.

there are no checks on what an MP does. Back in the 80s/90s, there was one Tory MP who did not attend a single session of parliament across 2x terms. Your mate runs a toy shop, but will be directly answerable to someone, and will have targets set, tough ones if it's Toys R Us probably.

MPs have no targets and minimal accountability.

It's not a high wage for the responsibility and importance of the job. It's a pitiful wage.

If you work in high level humanitarian/development stuff for the UN, you get paid local wage in the place you work.

The responsibility and importance should not mean you get paid any more than a what is already a high salary, and £60k per year is fucking plenty. Politicians do not have to work hard at all, they get loads of spare time. That salary would get you a very cushy stress free life, even employ a maid. Leaving you to focus on the job at hand.

Would paying £120,000 instead of £60,000 get you twice the quality out of a politician? I think the people good at this sort of thing would be happy to do it for very little money. The "best" minds would have already made themselves rich in the private sector, for others who are more academically or altruistically driven, they are not in it for the money.

there are no checks on what an MP does. Back in the 80s/90s, there was one Tory MP who did not attend a single session of parliament across 2x terms. Your mate runs a toy shop, but will be directly answerable to someone, and will have targets set, tough ones if it's Toys R Us probably.

MPs have no targets and minimal accountability.

They are accountable to their respective parties, but ultimately to the electorate.

I would suggest that there needs to be a better framework in place for kciking the idle fuckers out of office though.

60k is a shit load of cash to on paper have responsibilities but in reality your accountable to no one.

and don't get me started on the eurocrats / euro MP's

thats where the real gravy train is at

I know very few people who earn less than £60k.

How is it in your social bubble? I mean seriously; I'm intrigued.

Do these people realise how high up the echelons of society they are? Do they think mushy peas are guacamole?

Our "HR business partner" got made redundant last week, we found out after she went that she was on £75,000- for doing fuck all apart from sitting there, being hated by everyone.

£75 was too much for her to be paid per year.

Anyway, point is that people can be on a lot more than you think (or they deserve).

Instead of making the pay massive so they don't take bribes and shit, make it lower so the kind of cunt that would take bribes doesn't want it and have a country run by regular twats like you and I (excluding knightlancer, didn't realise he was an actual knight), think of the massive tax cuts wvm would get.

Snowden is now going to stay in Russia.. .. Where nobody needs to worry about freedom of the press... with no less than 55 journalists killed since 1992.. and where all kinds of "information" is called "propaganda" and met with harsh penalties and high fines.. Where everyone spies on everyone and denunciation is a national sport.. Purtin not totalitarian enough? Next stop Iran en-route to Zimbabwe ... He's, according to the LA Times, applied to 15 countries for asylum.. Lets guess the list.. North Korea, Burma, Congo, Sudan,.....

Instead of making the pay massive so they don't take bribes and shit, make it lower so the kind of cunt that would take bribes doesn't want it and have a country run by regular twats like you and I (excluding knightlancer, didn't realise he was an actual knight), think of the massive tax cuts wvm would get.

Yeah, but I'd not want you running the country cuz you get your Is and Mes mixed up.

And I definitely wouldn't want I running the country because me know how shit me am.

gulp Panorama tonight is about the use of drugs (such as anti-depressants) in pregnancy. As you'd expect, inconclusive.

The "best" minds would have already made themselves rich in the private sector.

You utter, utter knob.

It's not a high wage for the responsibility and importance of the job. It's a pitiful wage.

My mate runs a branch of Toys r Us and earns about that. It's a toy shop. He is paid as much for running a toy shop that employs 40 or so people as an MP is for governing 15,000 people.

It's insane.

MPs don't govern their constituents, they are their representatives.
£60,000 is fuck all these days. All the self-employed tradesmen I drink with are on well north of that....

Can't we just call a rent-boy a rent-boy any more?

Hi, this is Buck, he's a handjob consultant.

There are other sorts of trade will - too long in that London...

£60K is hardly competitive... Which by the way is one of the main reasons why parliament/politics still attracts a so many useless cunts.