[Closed] A Conservative/Labour coalition...?

Lest we forget - effective government requires strong opposition.

So how do they manage in Germany? Presumably the government is totally ineffective and the country is going down the pan?

I was at a meeting early this morning to discuss investment in Africa. Combination of business folk, MPs and civil servants. The host (an ex-MP) summed things up well when trying to stimulate a debate:

Businessmen like to under-promise and over-deliver
Politicians over-promise and under-deliver

Quite.

@ Jam
Re the first point remind you agree it is happening you just dont care.

Re elite - the problem is football players are there because they are talented and the best. They are not there because they went to the best schools, because their folks were MPs or because of who they know.
Secondly MP's are there to represent the people they serve. When you draw them from a narrow social strata you get an elite.

Business people generally hate real politics (certainly in the UK), it simply isn't of interest and most wouldn't take the pay cut required.

We also need more women and BME.

Businessmen like to under-promise and over-deliver
Politicians over-promise and under-deliver

Yes, that was my first thought when reading about Tesco's profits. 🙄

What I thought as I watched the economy go belly up and when I watched G4S over deliver at the Olympics and when I saw SERCO over deliver on prison contracts ...oh my mistake that was just over claim
Etc

Re elite - the problem is football players are there because they are talented and the best. They are not there because they went to the best schools, because their folks were MPs or because of who they know.

you are really keeping it real and so street there with folk who wont take a pay cut to x 3 the average wage

If you are interested in a career Politics PPE is an excellent degree, it's not surprising its well represented.

[i]So how do they manage in Germany? [/i]

I don't think the two systems bear much comparison TBH the Germans have a long tradition of cooperation that goes back to the early days of the Holy Roman Empire.

So they can manage effective government without a strong opposition, and THM's statement isn't actually a universal truism, just something which is part of the status quo here?

Labour party ?

Is not aimed at any party in particular to be clear.

Perfect example of how little real information / relevance there is in the "average wage" statistic

Thanks for addressing the issue I raised about us needing more "real" people and just doing a really imprecise attack on "average wages".
I do not even know what your point is

If you are interested in a career Politics PPE is an excellent degree,

I would rather have more alan Johnson or dave CMD davis than another Oxbridge PPE candidate personally.

FWIW if you wont be a politician because it is not personally financially rewarding enough for you at that salary then I am delighted we remove the greedy from standing. Its public service after all and paid better than most other public servant jobs. If you are doing it for personal wealth then you are self serving rather than public serving

JY - average wage - mean, mode, median and all that stuff. Also average includes a lot of part time work and a mix over the whole working age range (lots of kids on low wages, lots of soon-to-be pensioners on low wages). It's a really poor stat. The average household income for those with kids is £65k btw. My point is those business people you want as MPs make a lot more money than MPs.

Just because you pick a job with reference to it's salary doesn't make you greedy. Being an MP is a total PITA in my view, being in the cabinet I can imagine is interesting but the rest of it is pretty mundane and dreadfully anti-social in terms of hours / commitments etc

It's a really poor stat

average household income

The top decile of single adults earn a median income of £60,500,

My point is those business people you want as MPs make a lot more money than MPs.

FWIW if you wont be a politician because it is not personally financially rewarding enough for you at that salary then I am delighted we remove the greedy from standing. Its public service after all and paid better than most other public servant jobs. If you are doing it for personal wealth then you are self serving rather than public serving

I am out as we get nowhere when we "debate"

As an aside JY Group 4 where pushed into bidding on the Olympics, they told the government/organizing committee the format was unworkable (recruit, vet, train workforce months in advance for a 3 week potential assignment in the future)

Not trolling really. I was answering various comments around MPs not being representative. Our MPs are not well paid, FWIW they should be paid double or treble and there be less of them and zero expenses and no other outside employment (France and German MPs make much more)

I have no idea what world one lives in when you claim a top 10% wage is "not well paid".
Have a look at how much more it is than average wages of the folk they represent.

Lollipop ladies £3,187 average p/a (+4.9% yearly change)
Theme park attendants £6,011 (-10.9%)
Bar staff £7,317 (-1.0%)
Playworkers £7,400 (-3.8%)
Waiters & waitresses ( £7,654 +8.3%)
Cleaners £8,067 (+1.9%)
Florists £8,960 (-6.0%)
Hairdressers £10,174 (+0.9%)
Fitness instructors £10,378 (-8.4%)
Shopworkers £11,174 (+0.3%)
Cooks £11,346 (-7.4%)
Nursery nurses £11,163 (-0.4%)
Beauticians £12,418 (+5.3%)
Window cleaners £12,561 (-11.2%)
Receptionists £12,595 (+1.8%)
Care workers £12,804 (+0.9%)
Childminders £12,949 (+2.3%)
Telephonists £14,032 (+1.5%)
Tailors & Dressmakers £14,482 (-23.5%)
Caretakers £16,114 (+3.9%)
Secretaries £16,384 (+1.1%)
Cabbies £16,416 (+4.6%)
Customer service £16,525 (+9.5%)
Undertakers £16,526 (0%)
Packers £16,820 (-0.4%)
Tele sales £17,362 (-1.1%)
Chefs £17,391 (+0.3%)
Gardeners £17,595 (-1.3%)
Street cleaners £17,616 (-3.8%)
Butchers £17,681 (+1.2%)
Hospital porters £17,748 (+5.8%)
Farm workers £17,925 (+4.9)
Traffic wardens £18,065 (-4.2%)
Travel agents £18,344 (+10.7%)
Van drivers £18,744 (+2.9%)
Tyre & exhaust fitters £18,888 (-4.2%)
Bank clerks £19,908 (+9.3%)
Youth & Community workers £20,240 (+2.6%)
Civil servants £20,330 +1.2%
Council administrators £20,351 (+2.9%)
Vicars £20,568 (-3.6%)
Security guards £20,841 (+2.2%)
Plasterers £21,155 (+0.1%)
Lab technicians £21,168 (+0.2%)
Fork lift drivers £21,444 (+0.3%)
Musicians £21,492 (+6.8%)
Roofers £21,921 (-1.5%)
Bricklayers £22,476 (-7.0%)
Painters £22,700 (+1.9%)
Ambulance staff £22,854 (+5.6%)
Housing officers £23,001 (-0.6%)
Bus & coach drivers £23,095 (+3.0%)
Posties & messengers £23,178 (+17.5%)
Librarians £23,940 (-0.3%)
Carpenters £24,029 (+1.4%)
Photographers £24,242 (-4.8%)
Farmers £24,520 (+5.5%)
Estate agents £24,783 (-8.2%)
Publicans £25,222 (+10.7%)
Mechanics £25,238 (-0.7%)
Lorry drivers £25,602 (+1.4%)
Nurses £26,158 (+0.65)
Prison officers £26,616 (+2.6%)
Welders £26,735 (-1.6%)
Printers £26,833 (+2.7%)
Speech therapists £27,470 (-0.5%)
Plumbers £27,832 (-1.2%)
Social workers £28,182 (+1.6%)
Firefighters £28,183 (+0.3%)
Office managers £28,790 (-1.8%)
Human resources personnel £28,999 (+1.0%)
Car makers £29,845 (+1.9%)
Web designers £29,870 (+5.5%)
Midwives £30,020 (+2.0%)
Scaffolders £30,591 (+2.8%)
Coal miners £30,688 (-8.8%)
PRs £31,818 (+0.4%)
Telecoms engineers £32,253 (+5.3%)
Vets £32,374 (-4.0%)
Hotel managers £32,470 (-2.0%)
Teachers £32,547 (+1.4%)
Journalists £35,117 (-0.4%)
Train builders £37,613 (+3.3%)
Civil engineers £38,236 (-2.7%)
Quantity surveyors £38,855 (+1.5%)
Police officers £39,346 (-1.2%)
Construction managers £42,066 (+8.3%)
Architects £44,024 (+3.3%)
Electrical engineers £44,430 (+3.7%)
Solicitors £44,787 (-2.3%)
Train drivers £45,489 (+3.7%)
Barristers & Judges £45,571 (-2.3%)
Health managers £46,629 (-4.7%)
Financial advisers £46,797 (-0.3%)
Dentists £53,567 (+14.3%)
Senior police £58,727 (-3.5%)
[b]MPs Now £66,396 (+1%)[/b]
Doctors £70,646 (+1.3%)
[b]MPs Future? £74,000 (+11%)[/b]
Airline pilots £78,482 (-0.1%)
Chief executives £117,700 (-4.4%)

For example there solution for the North is to spunk cash on HS2 to make it faster for us to get to london rather than make it easier for us to get to places in the North. I have been twice so this change will be less than life changing personally.

Oddly enough, I have two clients in the SE who are pro HS2 as it would enable them to relocate/expand their companies across the UK without having to worry about how inaccessible they are - something that is a real concern with our current (lack of) infrastructure.

You could argue that they are looking to take advantage of lower property costs/wages 'oop North' but if that's what is needed to make them competitive in their respective market places and enables them to flourish & grow then I'm all for it.

JY, I accept perhaps live I live in a "different world" but don't you think you'd want your MP to be talented and thus well paid. £75k isn't that much to live and work in central London, one of the reasons you see many MPs from financially secure backgrounds is they can afford to take the job with all the risks and uncertainties.

You add to your list top local government people, police, head teachers. You're paid more as a head teacher than as an MP and the former is a much better and more rewarding job and you don't risk getting kicked out and being made unemployed every 5 years.

A few other snippets

Top accountant (partner at say KPMG) £500-750k
Partner at London Law firm £1m-£3m
Average FTSE 100 board member £2.5m

You can argue that some these figures are too high but we wish for top notch talent running the country but we don't pay for it.

You add to your list top local government people, police, head teachers. You're paid more as a head teacher than as an MP and the former is a much better and more rewarding job and you don't risk getting kicked out and being made unemployed every 5 years.

I would argue that a head teacher has a far, far more demanding job than an MP.

Top accountant (partner at say KPMG) £500-750k
Partner at London Law firm £1m-£3m
Average FTSE 100 board member £2.5m

You can argue that some these figures are too high

Gosh, no, they're doubtless worth every penny. I can't imagine anybody on here arguing that.

😆

add to your list top local government people, police, head teachers

don't you think you'd want your MP to be talented and thus well paid

£75k isn't that much to live and work in central London

The more you write the more I am convinced you are a turing test or an automated satire bot.

automated satire bot.

I am pointing out that those talented enough to rise to the top in politics almost certainly could earn much more outside and those outside and successful aren't incentivised to become MPs. KPMG has 600 partners making those sort of amounts.

I'm well aware of the expenses (see my post earlier that they should be paid more and have expenses). They are elected elsewhere and then have to spend a significant amount of time in London which is very expensive.

@aracer, its not about whether they are worth that pay but what pay is available if you are talented.

From memory the top French/German ministers make about euro 500k pa

[quote=jambalaya ]I am pointing out that those talented enough to rise to the top in politics almost certainly could earn much more outside and those outside and successful aren't incentivised to become MPs.

Because the only possible incentive is money?

ha ha I like that ! All those jobs I quoted are paid more than MPs, you are saying to me you think the head of local government should be paid more than an MP ? Perhaps I've lost track of what you are/are not saying here.

Someone in charge of say 8,000 staff, perhaps serving a large city and ultimately responsible for highways, adult social care, education and child protection?

@aracer, no of course money is not the only incentive. I was just trying to point out that if you are successful in businesses being an MP isn't attractive and if you think you'll be successful in business you' not go into politics in general.

@ransos, well in my view the local MP does all that and more.

@ransos, well in my view the local MP does all that and more.

Your MP manages several thousand staff and is responsible for child protection? Could you explain how?

Because the only possible incentive is money?

I was just trying to point out that if you are successful in businesses being an MP isn't attractive and if you think you'll be successful in business you' not go into politics in general.

We dont need more rich people in parliament nor PPE students, nor media, PR nor law. We need more plumbers, nurses, shop workers, cleaners etc you know the stuff most of us do and who live like most of us do

FWIW if you wont be a politician because it is not personally financially rewarding enough for you at that salary then I am delighted we remove the greedy from standing. Its public service after all and paid better than most other public servant jobs. If you are doing it for personal wealth then you are self serving rather than public serving

MP's pay is always an interesting discussion. jambalaya makes a fair point that, in order to attract the brightest and best people onto government you need to pay a salary that is comparable to the top earners in the country. Rightly or wrongly, £75k does not come close even though it is clearly a very good wage.

Obviously money is not the only drawn to politics, having power is also a draw, one I'm not sure should be seen as a positive thing.

The other way of doing things is to pay a much lower wage to MP's in the hope of attracting people with real interest/passion rather than those driven by money. Sadly, that means many will take other jobs with the associated conflicts of interest that brings.

@ransos - because he/she votes on the legislation and budgets etc.

@ransos - because he/she votes on the legislation and budgets etc.

1/650th of the say on what's going through Parliament. And it's not even that because they'll invariably do what the whips tell them. Wow!

In contrast, we all know what happens when the wheels fall off in child protection or in a school - that's why managing those institutions is much, much more important.

We've already had a tory/labour coalition, it was called new labour.

😆 @ NW

in order to attract the brightest and best people onto government you need to pay a salary that is comparable to the top earners in the country.

Junkyard - do you really want nurses, plumbers etc to be MP's? I don't want that any more than I want an MP to look after me in hospital or service my boiler. I totally understand that the people we elect as MP's should understand the issues those of us in the real world have, but I'm not sure that taking your average hairdresser and putting them in charge of the foreign office for example is necessarily a good idea.

Of course a back bench MP is a position of relatively low responsibility, but from those 650 back benchers we need people who can manage huge departments with budgets in the billions. Could you do that? Because I'm pretty sure I couldn't.

I'm not saying for a moment that all the MP's we currently have are suitably experienced and knowledgeable to run the country successfully BTW. But removing them and replacing them with blue collar workers or people who often only have experience of running one man band enterprises is not I think necessarily the answer to our current dearth of political talent - on both sides of the house.

I'm not sure what the answer is BTW!

It's funny because it's true JY 😉

boriselbrus - Member

from those 650 back benchers we need people who can manage huge departments with budgets in the billions.

Not so much, that's what we have the civil service to do. Otherwise the entire country'd stop working every time we have an election or a reshuffle or a Theresa May. Well OK, bad example.

Not so much, that's what we have the civil service to do. Otherwise the entire country'd stop working every time we have an election or a reshuffle or a Theresa May. Well OK, bad example.

😀

I agree. Although I suppose it depends if you believe Humphrey Appleby or Jim Hacker as to who runs the country!

I suspect we all agree that what we have currently is far from ideal although how we fix it is not so clear. Interesting though that we generally have a complete distrust and disdain for our MP's even though we elected them...

Even after the expenses scandal, we [i]knew[/i]some of our politicians were basically fraudsters and we still re-elected them.

Maybe Douglas Adams was right about the lizards...

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very-ancient-democracy-you-see-you

You can argue that some these figures are too high but we wish for top notch talent running the country but we don't pay for it.

money isn't the only form of remuneration as an MP: there's also prestige, a degree of influence, and access to a network for further moneymaking opportunities (mostly but not always upon exit from Westminster).

aracer - Member 
Lest we forget - effective government requires strong opposition.
So how do they manage in Germany? Presumably the government is totally ineffective and the country is going down the pan?

Good question aracer. Considerable debate going on within Germany right now on this verv point. Some German academics and economists are indeed suggesting that the lack of opposition to the perceived wisdom/consensus is or will be the root of Germany's future problems. Thanks for reminding me. I might post the links later if you are interested aracer!!!

Yes very good Northwind, and true in some respects as they moved to the center in order to get elected. If they hadn't made such a mess 2006-8 they would still probably be in power. Merkel survived the financial crises.

JY,

Pay and talent are not that clearly linked IME it tends to show either who works the hardest or kisses the most arse rather than talent

My take, and I know this isn't shared by everyone, is that each role in the cabinet needs specific skills and we don't attract those skills to government for various reasons.
The Prime Minister for instance is basically a CEO. He/she is a figure head who drives the general direction but hires other people to make the smaller decisions for them. Experience as a CEO for a global company would be useful.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is an accountant/financial controller. Again, experience in these roles in a large organisation dealing with profit and loss would be very useful.

I also don't agree that you need people who have specific experience of all area of society, just an understanding of them. I do think you need people with experience of the world outside politics but I don't think you need to have been on benefits to understand them for instance. I think a simple rule that you can't be an MP without 10 years experience outside of politics, be it as a banker or a builder, would help this hugely.

Edit, just read the 2 paragraphs above and they could be seen as contradictory. I don't think they are as I think it depends on the role but I can smell the flames already...

Am late to the feast, but surely the convergence of the major parties shows the decline of genuine POLITICAL debate - sheer managerialism.

We need choices. We need alternative visions. We need alternatives to capitalism in crisis and its apologists in the cycling classes (hi Jambalaya - why not rename yourself Eton Mess? - and Boriselbrus) and please, no more about the Labour Party favouring the unions. There is so much to unpick in this erroneous statement!

dekadanse, that is very fair. A big part of the disillusionment with politics at the moment is that the 2 biggest parties (3 if you include the Lib Dems) are fighting over the same middle ground. There is little difference in their policies or the people that represent them.

There is however an argument that the reason this is the case is that the country is actually in a pretty good state right now. The NHS works OK, the justice systems is OK, the education system is OK. Yes there are things that could be improved but overall, we're doing all right. When this is the case I suspect there is little need for a vote at the extremes of either right or left and so no parties caters for that need.

@dekadanse hi - I am much more Cajun spiced poor mans rice than strawberries and maerange. Can't workout the Boris-el-brus ? Perfectly happy to consider an alternative to capitalism but please show me where an alternative system is already up and working well first rather than leap into the dark with no idea if it's actually going to work. Capitalism has delivered unparalleled quality of life for all, the poor are so much better off and better protected than they where 50, 100, 200 years ago.

What @lunge says, people love a good moan but things are working pretty well here, of course room for improvement (like any school report).

I think a simple rule that you can't be an MP without 10 years experience outside of politics, be it as a banker or a builder, would help this hugely.

if don't think someone has the right experience, you shouldn't vote for them. you shouldn't try to stop everyone else voting for them!

A UKIP voter in Clacton said he'd voted for the UKIP candidate because the Tory MP they'd had for years had been useless

A UKIP voter in Clacton said he'd voted for the UKIP candidate because the Tory MP they'd had for years had been useless

please please please post a source for this, preferably a video of the gormless sod saying it sincerely.

I saw the claim on Twitter, but sadly can't find a source.

This is the original source I think (retweeted by Carlton Reid, who I follow) - you'll have to make up your own mind on how reliable the source is:
https://twitter.com/Thatcherite4/status/520664127384350720

urban myth ? A good one though.