Quote of the day
“The prime minister is clear that we need to strengthen public confidence in the political system and reduce the cost of politics.”
- a Downing Street spokeswoman, responding to the news that MPs will get a rise of nearly £1,000 in their basic salary from 1st April 2010, taking their pay to £65,737 a year. The 1.5% increase follows uproar at the MPs’ expenses scandal and anger among public sector unions at pay freezes.
Spectacular non answer to a question that wasn’t asked.
Its like a soft Dad who, having punished his kids for being naughty by taking away their pocket money, slips them a fiver ‘to make up for it’ with a proviso not to tell their mum. Seriously.
The increase is totally justified. It was awarded by an independent panel to cover the rise in living costs this year. Why do we believe that by making MPs wear a hair shirt and prying into every corner of their financial lives we will automatically get a better end result, i.e. better governance?
I would pay more, in an attempt to attract people from the professions who would find it hard to justify the risk of entering politics to their families due to the financial risk of losing an election, possibly due to your party leader making a tit of himself and not because you failed to represent your constituents or hold the government to account.
I might like to enter politics, but would I take a real risk with my family’s future financial security to do so. Not a chance. Nothing is more important than family.
Brown will say anything to keep himself in power on any subject. He lied so much today that I’m surprised his nose didn’t land on the table in front of Chilcott in true pinnochio style!
Oh, I don’t Tony.
You see, I KNOW we’ll get crap governance and therefore strongly object to these oafs taking lots of money and delivering what? The shortest sitting periods in the Commons’ history and some of the poorest, most ill-conceived laws we’ve ever seen subjected to weak scrutiny by the so-called opposition parties. Parliament has very little point – that’s why so few MPs turn up other than for PMQs or some other major events.
I don’t want them to wear hair shirts. I simply want the ability to vote for a hung parliament that will use real rope. Failing that, poking them about their
avaricefinances is about as close as I can get. Remember, I feel that Dorries’ warning that some MPs could kill themselves over being discovered on the rob is just another broken political promise.