The MPs are really stressed

[FabulousBakerGirl]

Bless.

The rules were fine.

The MPs took the piss.

Apparently the media, the public and the papers are to blame.

Oh dear.

Have also heard Italians laughing about the fuss we make.

Isn't the point, though, that making a fuss is exactly what we need to do if we don't want to end up with an Italian-style corruption rate?

It's precisely because we prize lack of corruption that we make a fuss. Let's keep at it!

Britain is not close to being a corrupt country. Many MPs abused the system I agree. But we should pay our MPs well if we want to avoid conflicts and the sort of outside influencing and lobbying that we see in other countries.

I would prefer if we had a more balanced discussion but events. The courage has not been balanced and entirely fair.

Let me say again that I think that some of the MPs were fraudulent and should face penalties.

should be "balanced discussion but about recent events"

ToughDaddy on Mon 25-May-09 10:57:20
"Britain is not close to being a corrupt country."

Exactly. But that is because we make a fuss at the first whiff of corruption.

Cory- agreed but we should also put in place the right structures. If take the lynch mob approach then we will cut their pay back to 64k or whatever it is and then MPs will go back to doing other things on the side and then more outside influences. That could have much worse consequences don't you think? Do you want law makers earning less than a a newly qualified acctnt/lawyer. I can't see how that is a good thing? What is the big picture here?

back against the wall time imo - viva la revolution!

lynch them all. It's their fault along with the bankers that we in the west have been consuming more than we can afford.

'Do you think they can claim for rope and razors?' V. good, Effie.

The other day the Today programme was reading out emails and the audience were saying re. Dorries's stupid remarks that MPs should be swinging from the lamp-posts. Vive la revolution!

The Times reckons 325 MPs will stand down at the next election. That's HALF the house. This really is the closest thing we've had to a revolution since Charles I had his head chopped off.

And apparently the Tories are now asking anyone who fancies a go to get in touch... if only I could bear to be a Tory I'd be tempted!

Good move Dave. The People's Party. I hope that he asks everyone to sign a declaration that they have never fiddled a taxi receipt.

A better system would be to appoint MPs by lottery for a few years? Why not?

Like jury service? Has a certain attraction. Obviously you'd get a proportion of stupid people, corrupt people and weirdos - no change there, then!

So we should pay them more or they will commit crimes such as selling votes? Leaving aside that some do that already I don't think we pay school teachers extra for not abusing kids or police officers more to bribe them not to beat up suspects. I don't think this is normal practice. Surely putting them in prison for breaking the law is the incentive we should be looking at.

"Do you want law makers earning less than a a newly qualified acctnt/lawyer"

You are right there! Cut the wages for accountants and lawyers to a sensible amount too.

The only reason they get so much is that when someone asks for a report on the consequences of them getting paid a fair wage they ask accountants and lawyers to prepare it.

But we get stupid ones anyway like the Tory guy who said that we were all jealous of his big house . Police could run background checks and could be points system depending on your behaviour. Must have English and maths GCSE and clean driving licence.

Great way of putting it, Onager.

Onagar- so we will change company law to tell shareholders that they have to cut sarlaries of private sector employees? Which careers will you pick on? Actuaries and insurance underwriters as well. Can prepare a longer list for you.

And if you end up cutting everyone's salary by 50pc you are back to where you started. I think we should stick Fidel in as Prime Minsiter and he will sort us out. I have no problem with socialism- I live for many years in a Socialist country

Cuba apparently has a really good health service, despite having no money as a result of the US embargo. Much better life expectancy etc. etc. than you would expect from incomes per head.

I suspect opposing Castra is a really, really bad idea but the public health stuff is quite impressive.

Let's all move to Cuba then. House prices are low, weather is nice and people are very educated and really nice.

Actually I think moving to Cuba (I have some other places in mind) is actually the more realistic plan since the way this country is organised is a mess. Even if you offered to put me in sole charge it would take so much work now to get things back on track that I wouldn't want the job. We should have started decades ago.

Toughdaddy, you're right that cutting salaries of private employees would be complicated, but in fact higher rates of taxes is one way to handle that. Cutting all salaries by 50% would be pointless, but that's not what we'd do.

The real difficulty is changing attitudes. Somehow we got to this point where it's considered that certain types of worker are so important that we must pay them enormously more than plumbers and nurses AND let them commit crimes as a perk.

We do need people with a reasonable education and the ability to plan ahead to be MPs. I don't think they are in such short supply that we have to bow down to demands from those currently in the job. Find me someone who has made a small business themselves (some of my immigrant neighbours for a start) and who can pick out Zimbabwe on a map and they can do the job. The civil service works out the details anyway. They just need to be able to see an overview of what needs doing.

Onagar- I agree that we need more diversity in our MPs backgrounds but I still think that we should pay them well and them demand very high standards.

I think MP bashing is turning into a national sport. Fine if you like that but would should put some careful thought into what structure we want for the future and not just run people down. There are many very good and committed MPs in the current set.

"British politics is one of the least corrupt in the world"

That's because they didn't need to be technically corrupt, in order to be actually corrupt. It was not against the law to rip the public off, so therefore it wasn't technically corruption. But of course, it was corrupt.

I don't see why MP's, who after all are supposed to be our elected representatives, should be paid so much more than the rest of us. If they represent us, why shouldn't they have the same income and outgoings as the average? Why do they need to be so highly paid? Nobody thinks we ought to pay teachers four times the average national wage in order for our children to be taught properly, why do we think our elected representatives need to have 4x the average wage in order to represent us properly? Why do certain jobs need to be paid so much in order to attract good people, and other jobs don't need to be? Is there a shortage of people queuing up to be MP's?

Very interesting points HerBeat. I wonder if you would be happy to live with some of the unintended national consequences of highly regulated pay. I have lived in a largely socialist country. Also spent some time in USSR. I am not rejecting your proposal but often we don't consider the full effects of this sort of proposal. Just as we are all criticising the free market now when we were quietly accepting the benefits for many years now.

I am no right winger but I think it was Michael Portillo who said every few decades capitalism fails but socialism hasn't yet worked. I don't agree completely with him [ I was a young socialist and am centre maybe centre-left] but I think that he has a point. The analogy is that British democracy has done us too badly so they can't all suddenly be rotten just because we are having a bad time and need some more tall poppies to cut down.

should be "British democracy has hasn't done us too badly ...."

The press is responsible for some of the largely tabloid examination of the issues of the day, trying to catch the headline and appealing to the lowest common denom.

I really don't think you can compare the outrage over MPs expenses with tall poppy syndrome (horrible phrase anyway). Criticism of MPs is entirely justifiable and essential - what sort of society would we be if we didn't care about right and wrong?

Poppy analogy is always trotted out to defend the haves against the have nots - as if the rich and powerful actually need any help... They are not the downtrodden victims of red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism.

ToughDaddy raises a very good point.

Obviously the MP's have been scamming the system blind. However, it seems equally clear that they have been doing so with the consent and assistance of the system which has effective told them to treat the expenses system as part of their pay regime - "we can't pay you more than £64k a year because the public will be up in arms but it's okay cos you can make it up around the side by making utterly spurious expenses claims".

The entire point of an effective Parliamentary democracy is to ensure that MP's are sufficiently well paid for their work to ensure that (a) you don't end up with a load of inbred toffs who don't need the money and only bother voting about fox hunting and peasant shooting or (b) MP's who aren't quite bright enought to work a swing door. We figured this out in about 1832 with the (Great) Reform Act which opened up the office of MP to anyone, whilst providing a salary for those who took it up. Whether it's worked or not is another question of course...

Personally I'd have thought we should be paying a higher salary to MPs, demanding a higher level of quality and transparency in their work and election and abolishing the expenses system all together. And before everyone says "but £64k would pay for 2 nurses/ triple what my family lives on in a week/ an incubator for the local hospital" I'd say that £64k isn't actually that much for a job with that theoretical level of responsibility. It's about what say, a marketing manager, or a financial controller, in a medium sized business makes. And did anyone read The Times guide to standing as an independent MP? Didn't exactly sound like a 9-5 job then back some in time for tea and a quiet night in. Perhaps I'm missing something but why again should we be scared about paying them more and demanding more in return?

cestlavie- you are far more articulate than I am. It took you just one post to explain the point.

Looks like Julie Kirkbride might be gone by tea. I am not passing judgement on the appropriateness of her expense claims but relation of mine who has dealt with her officially says that she is very genuine and very effective. And he is a labour voter.

I feel that there is an element of we the public/press suddenly changing our view on the expense system and the MPs being caught out. Ofcourse there has been a fradulent element by MPs as well. If we paid them a higher fixed amount to cover reasonable expenses then we would be demeaning our parliament which has served us reasonable well for decades.