I've been reading this thread with interest and have decided to name change to contribute, as I don't want to out myself professionally on here.
I work closely with MPs and have done for a very long time. I've known hundreds of them in fact, and know extremely well what they do all day. I personally wouldn't want to be one; it's not a job I am drawn to, and it carries with it multiple drawbacks and some bonuses.
I am a bit taken aback by the assumption on here that most of our MPs are from very privileged backgrounds and have turned their backs on better paid work. I know they lack diversity, and a disproportionate number of them have gone to public and private school. But we do not have a House of Commons full of multimillionaires. I know clever and less clever MPs, educated and left school at 15/16, lengthy previous careers of varying types and political animals from the outset, posh and less posh MPs. Plenty of MPs think they are paid pretty well; it's the expenses regime they find stressful and worrying. Quite a lot of them might earn 67k at the end of their respective careers if not a Member, but I don't think most would think of it as a small sum. I would venture to say from my own life experience that Malcolm Rifkind is speaking from a certain part of society with certain expectations when he says how hard it is to attract people on that money, and those are the people that are already overrepresented! It is also true to say, as quite a lot of you have, that being an MP can attract money in a way that many careers don't. Not that ex-MPs don't end up on benefits sometimes, but they are the exception, not the rule.
There are lots of barriers to increasing diversity amongst MPs, and also many other reasons why people would choose not to take on the job. Campaigning and campaigning is all-consuming, and most MPs have stood in practice seats at least once before entering the House. It takes years, and a certain singlemindedness. I would say the majority of MPs share a certain outlook on life, whatever their background, and I'm not sure I can define it very well, but I think the political life without that drive and inner certainty would be unbearable. Many MPs who are more 'normal' leave after one Parliament. Family life in the job is unbelievably hard. You either barely see your family or you bring them with you; we do now have a nursery which is open late when the House sits late, but it's not ideal, and obviously doesn't solve your problems when your children are too old for it.
Marriages are strained, another reason (I'm sure finances pay a part) for many employing their partners, as it means you actually see them. You have to have a high threshold for politely enduring very dull events, and eating caterers' chicken. You have to sit through some very boring meetings.
I think that letting these salary comments mean so much is giving more credit to Rifkind's thinking than it perhaps deserves. As with expenses (still, after all these years) there are MPs who 'get' why people criticise their salaries and financial arrangements and MPs who just don't. Malcolm Rifkind doesn't seem to have 'got' it.
I have nothing at all against MPs as an entity. I see their faults and their good points. If I had any great objection to them, I wouldn't be able to do my job! But I would point out that I, like probably 95% of the staff that work with them, earn less than an MP, and probably will for the indefinite future given that our pay and progression is now more or less frozen. I am highly qualified, intelligent, and could probably have earned more in a different career, as could many of my colleagues, some of whom even have Oxford PPE degrees. We have to live entirely in London, or within commuting distance to London, on my salary alone. without additional expenses. When I work late to support their work, I pay for my own dinner, and my own journey home. Alongside this, I go home to my own family, not a one bedroom flat, and I spend my weekends (unless work is very busy) doing what I please rather than working.
So I think it's all a great deal more complex than this thread suggests, and I'm sure people posting on here do recognise that. I doubt that we lack decent candidates for Parliament because of the salary though, as what you really need to survive as an MP is a certain level of obsession and determination. If the money puts you off, I don't think the rest of it would be any easier to cope with. Perhaps that mindset is rather male in general. We need wholesale reform of lots of bits of the machinery, from constituency selection onwards, to see great change.