tj - suggest you spend 15 mins online to become better informed about public sector/servant salaries, including county councils.
There are many with salaries which dwarf johnson's as PM.
Newly qualified lawyer at City Law firm
And what percentage of this countries population will ever come close to getting a sniff at that kind of career? And I wonder what background they would all come from? What schools they attended? Which universities they went to?
I personally think that our elected representatives should have at least some sort of financial connection to more than a tiny percentage of the people they claim to represent.
And some classic Boris - deflecting blame - ooh look at Geoffrey Cox but don't look at me.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59221290
What a ****
Oh I do know frank - and I know how few folk get £80 000 Very few. In the NHS only top managers and some consultants. In councils maybe the top teir of management
I live in the real world where 80 000 pa is a huge salery in the top few % of the country and beyond the dreams of most - and remember they still get a house in London bought for them. they still employ family in non jobs on expenses and still enjoy huge perks like cheap booze
£150k pa no extra jobs no personal expenses.
I have a couple of friends who I know are earning more than an MP, ones a hospital consultant and the others an IT contractor- through him I know a couple of others probably on a similar salary.
This is a decent enough village in between Nottingham and Derby, but not one of the posh villages. Certainly not London kind of salaries.
Boris bus on the way to "pick up" Cox...
remember they still get a house in London bought for them
No they don't
tj, you're way off the mark and allowing your personal views to obscure the facts.
And some classic Boris – deflecting blame – ooh look at Geoffrey Cox but don’t look at me.
It appears that it was a direct response to Labour asking for an investigation into the matter :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59218438
Would it have been better if Johnson had simply ignored the issue?
There plenty to criticise Johnson for, and the Paterson shenanigans is an excellent example. The problem with frivolous unjustified criticism is that whilst it might be hugely satisfying to call Johnson a **** every time he moves it actually undermines serious criticism.
I have a couple of friends who I know are earning more than an MP, ones a hospital consultant and the others an IT contractor- through him I know a couple of others probably on a similar salary
A couple? And that’s the point. What percentage of the population are on £80k+. A tiny percentage. So for MP’s to be on that, as well as their incredibly generous bonuses and pensions is not even remotely representative of 99%+ of their constituents
It’s instructive that they use the -1% as their benchmark
And then there’s the elephant in the room .. that so many of them are obviously such complete imbeciles that they wouldn’t last 5 minutes in a ‘proper’ job
Imagine interviewing for an 80 grand a year job and Mark Francois or Richard Burgon rocking up?
Is this because Johnsons still pissed at Cox because he advised proroguation wasnt ilegal?
(even tho Cox was a brexiteer)
tj, you’re way off the mark and allowing your personal views to obscure the facts.
I am really not you know. Its you that completely fails to understand the reality here
go look at some stats. Average income is around 30 000. £80 000 pa put you in the top 1 or 2 % of the country
Ids in the shit too
And Cox could be in quite serious trouble after all
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1458204228082704386?t=UJoidopP4RHPp7Jh_kaIMw&s=19
I want my MPs doing it for public service not to enrich themselves. personally I think the salery too high.
Interestingly my gut feel is its a lot of money for what some of them do, and on the other hand probably fair for the best of the bunch. Do you want more of the good ones or more of those who are only in it to jump up some political ladder or milk it for the pension at the end?
Here's a test though TJ. Will you come back out of retirement - for £80K + expenses for the next five years, to traipse up and down from Edinburgh to London, meet constituents in the evening, get dragged to every crappy local paper photo opp, wearing a suit pretending you are delighted to be handing out the certificates of excellence at school prize giving, then coming back to an inbox full of people moaning about stuff you voted against anyway.
I'm not sure I would.
I wouldn't come out of retirement but ten years ago - like a shot. I'd be made for life with the amount of money and I do like a bit of public service
I wouldn’t come out of retirement but ten years ago – like a shot
How about the House of Lords then? Sounds ideal for a retired gentleman.....no voters/constituents to bother you and I believe that if the proceedings become a tad boring you are allowed to nod off.
Plus you get £305 per day attendance allowance, plus travel expenses and subsidised restaurant facilities.
Somewhere warm and comfy to sit plus you get to trouser 305 quid per day..... what more could someone with a keen sense of public service and in their twilight years want?
Mind you since apparently you haven't got a pot to piss in your best means of access is probably to get yourself ordained as an Anglican bishop.
"Imagine interviewing for an 80 grand a year job and Mark Francois or Richard Burgon rocking up?"
If the job wasn't as open to corruption and exploitation and was more open to scrutiny Mark Fracois wouldn't be interested.
As for monkey tennis guy, pay peanuts and you get monkeys.
See poly's point. We need ot encourage better candidates to run for office, for whatever party. At the moment it only seems to attract crooks and duffers.
The salary is fine, remember they also get expenses, excellent pensions, money towards second homes, over 50% more if they are a cabinet minister, 15 weeks holiday, subsided food, beer, travel etc.. it should be well paid, but they should also treat it like a full time job.
There are plenty of decent people in this country working for much less or even free for community groups / charities.
15 weeks holiday,
I can assure you very few MPs have 15 weeks "off" as that statement suggests. Even the useless ones.
Local MP had in 19-20 claimed a tad over £250k in expenses. £170k in accommodation and staff (£143k). I was about to say I'd be his staff for half that but given its John Lamont (con) there's not enough money in the world to make me spend time in the same room as the odious little twunt.
Python software engineer with a reasonable amount of experience will get more than £80k in London/se.
In fact I recently was involved in recruiting a python/aws engineer in the Ukraine (kyiv) for about that.
They are allowed 15 weeks, of course most don't, but many find time for second jobs.
The difficulty in comparing an MP 's salary with other similar professional jobs is of course, you could have your job taken away from you after 5 years and It could be nothing to do with you personally.
How senior do you need to be in London or the SE to earn more than an MP?
in IT, not particularly. Google (who don't pay exceptionally) pay £73k average for a software eng and £120k for a senior software eng (no people responsibility, just pushing out code). Grad salaries in London are around 60k.
https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/Google-London-Salaries-EI_IE9079.0,6_IL.7,13_IM1035.htm
https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/
Tyson Fury earns more than that in a single fight, maybe they can all go and be heavyweight boxing champions the money seems rather attractive. Or maybe throwing out alternative jobs where you can earn in the top percentiles of UK earning is a meaningless distraction.
The difficulty in comparing an MP ‘s salary with other similar professional jobs is of course, you could have your job taken away from you after 5 years and It could be nothing to do with you personally.
5 years is a pretty secure position for a lot of people, I think that statement displays a lack of understanding of job insecurity for a hell of a lot of normal employees.
I personally think that our elected representatives should have at least some sort of financial connection to more than a tiny percentage of the people they claim to represent.
Isn't that what they're doing?
You know living the "Millenial experience" by having a side gig... As an MP.
All of those zero hours Deliverooists and Hermes drivers should be encouraged, they have a representative voice in Jeffrey Cox...
you could have your job taken away from you after 5 years and It could be nothing to do with you personally.
Or the other way of looking at it is you have a five year fixed term contract where it is incredibly hard to be sacked from.
A lot more stable position than one where you might get made redundant for nothing personal but just the job is being offshored to save a few quid.
No one needs more than 80k. There is no need for a second job. The only sympathy I have is for doctors etc maintaining their licence for the end of their stint in politics. Raising it would be counter productive imo as we don't need any more London centric money chasers, we need more people with an appreciation of what life is like in the rest of the country.
5 years is a pretty secure position for a lot of people, I think that statement displays a lack of understanding of job insecurity for a hell of a lot of normal employees.
I employee folks, I understand the insecurity that people face. There's a lot of them I wouldn't want as my MP
Even after only one period of office, MP's redundancy and pension packages are eye-watering (plus the housing benefits, exes etc whilst in office). If they wanted a job for life then maybe they haven't had very good careers advice.
The difficulty in comparing an MP ‘s salary with other similar professional jobs is of course, you could have your job taken away from you after 5 years and It could be nothing to do with you personally.
That's very secure job nowadays for those of us on zero hours contracts.
There is no need for a second job. The only sympathy I have is for doctors etc maintaining their licence for the end of their stint in politics.
We would need to include lawyers and accountants in that cadre as they need to maintain their professional standing (along with engineers and many other certified professions).
That’s very secure job nowadays for those of us on zero hours contracts.
So would you prefer to have a better contract or see everyone on zero hours?
No one needs more than 80k. There is no need for a second job. The only sympathy I have is for doctors etc maintaining their licence for the end of their stint in politics. Raising it would be counter productive imo as we don’t need any more London centric money chasers, we need more people with an appreciation of what life is like in the rest of the country.
I would say this creates the problem we already have.
I believe we should pay our MPs several times their current salary. That level of pay is (relatively) easily attained for the brightest and the best in the wider market, and I want the very brightest and the best employed as MPs. Paying less just creates an obvious culture of self interest. I mean does anyone actually think someone as plummy as Geoffrey Cox would survive on south of say £300k a year? Im not commenting on whether he'd be worth that, hell I don't know if he's worth £75k, but it's very obvious that he's not going to still be in the commons on just 75k pa + expenses. In order to create real competition for the job of MP, alongside a mechanism to ensure that illicit self-enrichment via other routes creates genuine risk of losing a lot, pay needs to increase many fold.
the salary thing is difficult. You want to pay enough to get the best people in, but not pay so much that people want to do it just for the money. Given the bredth of backgrounds\industries from which 'the best people' may come, I don't think there's an easy answer.
but it’s very obvious that he’s not going to still be in the commons on just 75k pa + expenses
Good. Your mistake is thinking money is the only reason to become a mp.
I appreciate money is not the be all for many, but its certainly a limiting factor and for sure reducing the money (or not increasing it) is very unlikely to yield a better crop of MPs just because they're more willing to work for less.
Pay should be commensurate with the leaders of industries that aren't in industries which have excessive pay scales. 75k isn't that number.
I also happen to believe that they should be held to far higher standards, and measured in terms of their performance in meaningful, published ways. I expect to get more for paying more and those that didn't meet the cut should be removed and new by elections held ahead of time rather than wait every 5 years to then re-elect the same slackers.
That level of pay is (relatively) easily attained for the brightest and the best in the wider market,
1% of the population reach that high level of salary.
This suggestion will be met with "some" resistance.
Although I agree. You don't get the best by buying cheap.
1% of the population reach that high level of salary.
So, the brightest and best, then?
1% of the population reach that high level of salary.
Luckily only 0.0009% of the population are MPs, so it won't cause much of a change.
This suggestion will be met with “some” resistance.
Yes it would. This country does have an issue with other's success. I also happen to believe many other public servants deserve much more money, and more urgently. Our whole system seems quite broken, but I don't see anyone in the HoP with either the motivation, smarts, or personality (or more importantly a combination of the 3) to fix it. Hence why I believe that a change of approach is needed.
75k isn’t that number.
Nor is the number that MPs actually make, it's just the headline.
MPs salaries are such a sideshow, lots of MPs could do quite fine without any salary at all, it's not the desperation of poverty that is making them take bribes or second 'jobs' is it.
Although I agree. You don’t get the best by buying cheap.
Sounds good, except our world does not work like that at all does it? It's more who you know and what you can get away with. There are plenty of incompetent, unqualified people holding down high salaries.
IIRC, one of the Scandinavian countries (Denmark?) MP’s live in state provided accommodation midweek, have free public transport passes they are expected to use and have a state appointed secretary etc for equivalent of the constituency office.
This, most definitely this. An accommodation block provided by the state whilst the MPs need to be near parliament. There is absolutely NO reason for a 2nd home in London, none whatsoever. When I have been required to work away from home I need to stay in a hotel within a set budget and need to provide receipts for ALL expenses. Why should our glorious leaders be any different?
In the interests of disclosure I earn nowhere near £82K. In fact I don't think anyone in my circle of friends will earn more than an MP, certainly not more than the PM.