"MPs can't live on £60K a year" says Sir Malcolm Rifkind

[CFSKate]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/investigations/11429070/MPs-cant-live-on-60k-a-year-says-Sir-Malcolm-Rifkind.html

Is he being unreasonable?

So Rifkind can't exist on £60,000 a year? Oh Bless, £60,000 really is a pittance isn't it? How awful for him.

Perhaps he'd like to try living on the minimum wage instead. No? I don't think he'll want to do that somehow...

Mrs Rifkind has got MS.

I am especially disappointed in Jack Straw. I would have expected better behaviour from him. With his socialist principles and anti being greedy. Doesn't exactly help the Labour Party's image.

There are 6.1 + million working households in poverty in the UK. They are stigmatised by a government of MP's who graphically illustrate the real 'entitlement culture.' They have consultancies etc, vested interests in private social care and healthcare companies. Privatisation is profiting from the poor, this government have it down to a fine art.

Yes, Malcolm Rifkind is being unreasonable. Most people in this country live on a lot less than that, and MPs should be representatives of us.
The real problem isn't the absolute amount MPs earn, it's the inequality that exists, so he compares himself to CEOs and lawyers who earn unmerited salaries (and no, actually, they're not better, more productive or intelligent than midwives who earn one hundred times less than them) and he feels hard done by. There is no reason in that.

Jack Straw and MF have done nothing wrong and I am sure will be vindicated so I'm surprised anyone is disappointed in them. People are allowed to seek work for after they cease to be MPs. They are both two of our best MPs.

Whether or not they have done anything wrong is beside the point. Neither have Amazon or any of those other offshore companies who avoid paying tax. They are working within the law as it stands. I hope Labour remember this next time they villilfy others greed. They both have demonstrated self interest and greed. Is that acceptable. Not when you think of all the Labour party stuff about greedy fat cats.

£67 k is great wage, especially when expenses etc go a long way to negate any tax paid. If an MP somehow thinks they need another job to make enough money to live then, as this salary is for full time work, they should certainly only receive pro rata part time money instead.

I can't see that it would put off many people who would make good MPs either. Too many MPs are parachuted into their roles (looking at the current government for this) as opposed to actually meriting their position. For many people classed as WC, my background, who have the skills needed to make a good MP but, too often, not the opportunity, £67 k could be seen as attainable. If the pay is raised to £150 k or some other ridiculous amount, it could even put them off because, again, this reinforces the impression that the government is for the privileged class as opposed to ordinary people, who are almost always often more talented, hard working and intelligent than most current incumbents.

Sorry about the garbled post. I know what I'm thinking but I mainly posted to start to roughly formulate it.

Make them live on minimum wage. If punishing the poor is good for them, ut giving lots of perks and 'expenses' to the already-wealthy is the only way to incentivise them, then as chucking money at this creature hasn't made him grateful - let's cut it. Drastically.

Let's be honest - we pay these wankers' wages. He's not fit for purpose if he can make such an insensitive, vile remark at a time when some of us are really struggling and on a fraction of that. Give him the bum's rush and every single other MP who ever votes for a pay rise.

If the plebs are only incentivised by whip and our 'betters' by the carrot, and it's clearly not working that fecking carrot, take it off the brainless, chinless, over-privileged arsehole and give it to me. If these idiots really are getting £5000 a day for a 'consultancy' fee - we shouldn't be paying them AT ALL.

There was a well known journalist a couple of years ago who said he had to take the nanny on holiday or it wouldn't be a holiday (for him). Seems most of us have never had a holiday. Many people in public life haven't a clue, not just politicians. However, I'm in favour of politicians having outside interests, and not becoming MPS before say 40 - otherwise they live in the Westminster bubble and cannot relate to the people they supposedly represent.

Jilly, Mrs Rifkind has MS and sits on the board of a leading MS charity.

For someone who has been blessed academically and gone to university and worked hard for their degree, 60k is not the the best wage by far on offer in the work place.

What will effectively happen is that decent MPs will be replaced by monied upper classes who go into politics for the kudos.

This is his point and what he wants not to happen.

But of course people get bogged down with oooo 60k it's so much more than I earn etc they should be on minimum wage see how they like it.

The MPs who do want to make a difference will get fed up with an essentially not great wage when they could earn twice as much at least in the private sector somewhere.

Apologies for not RTFT, and this might already have been said, but doesn't Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover live on his MP's salary?

Some MPs, and Skinner was one of them, didn't/don't take the full MP salary. Skinner certainly used to only take the same wage as the miners he was representing.

I do think that the general run of MPs we have atm are not worth even 60K. People take up careers for all sorts of reasons, and though money is possibly the most obvious reason, it is not the only reason people choose to do things.

I used to work in a major London venue. Our salaries were utter crap, even for the showbiz world. We had the 'status' and 'prestige' of being able to say we worked there.

MPs get status in spades. 60K is more than enough. I think they should get the national average and no expenses.