to suggest that a condition of employment as a MP should be a week living as a member of the working poor, or the unemployed or the squeezed middle before being allowed to make policies that affect th

[LackaDAISYcal]

Fucking fed up to the back teeth of being shat on from a great height by a bunch of twats who have no idea how the majority of the electorate actually live. The way things are going, we will lose our house as it's getting harder to meet our mortgage repayments every month.

and frankly John Prescott was no advertisement for Labour old guard either.

Some integrity.

1) MPs salary to be set at the current median full time wage etc
... and on this basis then Takver you would be willing to stand as an MP then?. Thought not. No bloody way would I have my office (ie parliament) hundreds of miles from where I live to earn average wage and neither would you. If it is such a fantastically well paid easy job then why arent there queues and queues of people wanting to do it then. You cant ban people from jobs on the basis of what they own or have earned in the past no more than you can ban them for their colour, sex or religion. It is equally wrong. What you can do as an individual is get involved locally not necessarily in any one party but be part of the decisions. too many people sit around wasting time and energy whinging about "these nobby politicians" and wont do anything positive to change it.

lurkedtoolong I would not like to say that the current Government are a heartless bunch of cretins as that is a very strong statement to charge against a person(s).
I agree with you on the point that everybody has different experiences and everybody has something to bring to the table. The point here is though, the only people sat at the table are the wealthy.
And none of them sat at that table today had a clear majority win to earn their seat there.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1280554/The-coalition-millionaires-23-29-member-new-cabinet-worth-1m--Lib-Dems-just-wealthy-Tories.html

I can't relate to the above.
They cannot relate to me either.
I do not feel properly represented in politics. Therefore I feel as if I am out there on my own and there is no politician that actually, really cares about what we go through here, as a family. And I am tired and upset at being told what I should or should not be doing to solve problems that I did not make, that politicians made but I have got to pay for... flurp Thanks for saying you'd vote for me but honestly? I would have to borrow cash from David Cameron when it came time for me to pay for the coffee, 'Oi, Dave, lend us 10.00 till payday... Got to get the coffee's in..!'

mummymeister, that has got to be right.

I have to say that 'budgeting for Christmas' does not really come high on my list of 'things that people should not have to do as a basic human right'.

I like Takver's approach except point 3 - why should the MP's partner not be able to carry on with whatever job they do at whatever wage they are getting?

democracy isn't perfect. But it is a lot better than the alternative.

"If it is such a fantastically well paid easy job then why arent there queues and queues of people wanting to do it then. "

Erm, given the difficulty of getting selected as a candidate, it would appear there ARE queues of people wanting the job.

And yes, potentially I would be interested in standing under those conditions. Unfortunately I think I would struggle to find a mainstream party that would have me given my political views .

I am very interested in standing as a town councillor though, & plan to do so once my dd is in secondary school.

special "except point 3 - why should the MP's partner not be able to carry on with whatever job they do at whatever wage they are getting?"

I don't like that point, but I think otherwise what will happen is that parliament will be dominated by candidates with partners in very well paid jobs, making their wage 'pocket money'. You can already see this trend - Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair are both classic examples.

Of course, in my post of 14.40 above, whether anyone will vote for me is another matter.

Great posts threebats, Totally agree with you.

how much an MP earns is a complete red herring.

they don't need to understand your wants and needs or mine. spending the money is easy bit.

we need MPs who understand getting more investment into the economy, from UK and foreign companies.

MPs pay, like the bedroom tax, makes one group feel better, but is just rearranging the deckchairs on a slowly sinking ship.

threebats there are some. My husband's cousin is an MP - he was an RE teacher for years up north while raising 4 kids, and got into politics via being a local councillor. As far as I remember his wife is his secretary so they can work through the night if necessary and they live pretty much hand to mouth on the MP salary he gets and put the rent for their flat in London on a credit card before it gets reimbursed. There's quite a funny little video tour of his London "second home" on his website, very glam not.

In general I think the problem is the lack of imagination and empathy. I'm a vastly lucky person who has never had to really struggle but I can readily imagine and empathise with the difficulties faced by those who have had less luck than I have in life, whether that's financial, academic or health and family related. It's not that hard to listen to what people are going through and put yourself in their shoes, to think about how someone with a child with disabilities or trying to make ends meet on JSA or less or made homeless on one months' notice from a landlord doesn't take much imagination. None of that has anything to do with background though so it makes no sense to bar someone from the job merely because of how much money they have or where they went to school.

What Dahlen said.

How can any of us ranting here even get an eyelash in the door of politics?

Im a fulltime carer for a severely disabled child, lifelong carer for lifelong disabilities.

I didnt ask for this, Im a hardworking person, but i HAVE to live on benefits.

This morning in the post I get a letter saying with this 'all in it together' gov laws i now have to pay council tax.

I home school DC as there are no schools AT ALL available for her, and Im paying for all school resources, (seving these theives £19,000 a year) pullup pants as I dont get them from anyone else, and ive had to buy less food this morning as suddenly everythings gone up.

i like to buy fresh fruit and veg and theyre costing a bomb now.

so yyyyy OP, they should live in our sandals not their designer expensive shoes. who the hell do we vote for? who knows REAL life?

why the hell are they robbing the poor and putting it in their ever growing pockets?

I would stand for average wage, if there was somewhere free to live in the week (I like the block of flats idea, it's perfectly sensible).

At least it would weed out the career crazy's and maybe some more reasonable passionate MPs would arise.

I'd generally just prefer it if MPs came from a wider range of backgrounds. You don't see many (any?) MPs that used to be social workers, or nurses when really their input would be extremely relevant to social policies. Instead they are 'consulted' and then usually ignored...

I grew up in Slough, only two miles away from Eton but the other side of the M4. As teenage girls we used to bump into Eton school boys in Windsor Mcdonalds - not one of us ever snogged them/wanted one as a boyfriend. They made the boys back at state (grammar) school look kinder, funnier, more intelligent every time.

Imagine going to a single sex, old fashioned, full of archaic slang boarding school with people from a limited wealth pool -that does n't train you for a normal job, with normal people who live at home with their parents and their worries.
It's unbelievable that such a sizeable number from a limited pool are making decisions for the huge variety of people and industries out there.

It's easy enough to stand (the deposit is a LOT if you are poor though) it is near impossible to get elected without party backing in a viable seat.

I'm with those who are worried about career politicians. Westminster is such a bubble and if they have never had experience outside of that bubble how on earth do they really know what it is like for most people.

Not only that, but they don't have technical expertise in any area other than politics so how much do they really understand about the issues in front of them. At least with the House of Lords, people do have an understanding of some of the techical issues because there are experts in the house.

Wasn't it Tony Blair who went to Fettes which is the Scottish equivalent of Eton.

technical not techical

I agree we are living in a ge of career politicians - that's why I disagree with the notion of 'national service' for politicians, it would achieve exactly nothing apart from a sound bite with which to patronise us.

There's a lot been said on this thread that I completely agree, particularly threebats, I'm not sure what I want, but a little humility at the fact no-one in power right now is there through popularity. Their careers (and future earnings, lets face it being in the cabinet is a step to a very lucrative retirement in almost all cases) are based on being in the right place at the right time, not through actually being good.

I heard a politician (can't remember who unfortunately - think it was the Wolverhampton MP) talking about the new 'bedroom tax'. He talked about how people could work a few extra hours at work to make up the short fall if they wished to stay in their properties. He very much gave the impression this was the feeling within the government. How out of touch to publicly talk about getting overtime to a nation suffering high rates of employment, talking to people who have had their wages frozen and are being forced to accept zero hours contracts... But yes, there's a million bosses out there just dying to hand out overtime.

I went off Nick Clegg and didn't vote Lib Dem for the first time because during his campaigning he was acting all benevolent and promising to raise the state pension. When a journalist asked him how much, the man pulled a figure out of his arse and said £65 per week! How could someone running for the position of Prime Minister have no idea how much the state pension actually was? It's not like it's a political side issue. Dick.

I think part of the problem is, besides the obvious silver spoons, these people are naturally surrounded by high flyers. They seem to have no concept that luck has played a huge part in their success. There're are millions of ambitious, intelligent, hard working people out there, but fate kicks more people in the groin than it allows to rise to the top. I wonder how many people they've lost touch with along the way who didn't make it.

Maybe we should publish all MP's CV's at any election to get a proper idea of who we're voting for.

Indeed - there are many people in work but they cannot get the hours they need - you should see the rush for overtime shifts at my work. It's not the case that people aren't willing - most people are juggling jobs, my cab driver the other night drove a bus by day, cabbed evenings/weekends. that is not unusual.

I dont like shiney dave but his son died recently. Gordons child died as well. And dcs father was a double amputee. They might not understand low incomes but I dont think its accurate to descibe them as wholey lucky.

Is there any way MNHQ can 'cut and paste' this thread and send it straight into the laps of Scameron and Cleggit?

They dont seem to read newspapers, watch the news, anyhting at all of the rw.

seriously, can this be done?

Another vote for threebats for PM!!

I have spent a lot of time thinking about various MPs circumstances and disability Faster, and I think, that although they have lots of empathy for how tough it can be coming from a privileged background they don't understand how important the financial side is when you are on a tight income.

It is very disappointing. I know a lot of parents with disabled children felt that Cameron would understand their needs, and his policies so far have shown that unfortunately he doesn't really.

Fucking fed up to the back teeth of being shat on from a great height by a bunch of twats who have no idea how the majority of the electorate actually live

I can flip your OP, OP.... why don't the 'working poor etc' actually do something radical, like get involved in politics and stand for election?

The current MPs don't magic themselves into office, they are voted in, by the 'working poor etc'.

The 'working poor' also live in a democracy and have the power to change things if they choose to. That was how the Labour party was born.

The budget today - okay, lets be honest here, every day they meet up in Parliament for their ''happy discussion sessions'' reminded me of when my children were young and they used to all sit about the living room with the PS1 (remember the PS1?!) Shouting at each other, 'You can't do that! I can do it better! Give it to me! You suck! You did that wrong! I'm not playing anymore! Get lost...' I was actually waiting for either party, Conservatives or Labour to go, 'Maaaammmm! He's being a tit, sort him out...'

Politicians, collectively, tire me. Wear me out. Make me want to reach for a beer and a smoke and wonder where it all went so horribly wrong....
At one point, I thought Osborne was going to choke - might that have been all the bile rising in his throat as he attempted to say what a jolly good job he was doing of it all?

I have just popped on here (not intending on saying all the above but couldn't help it!) to say that Osborne has now opened up a Twitter account - for the poster on this thread that said they did not go on Twitter/Facebook and so forth - he must have been bloody reading.... He's a brave soul though - not sure I would have a twitter account if I were him...