Owen Paterson #Torysleaze

They get a house bought for them in London? Bloody hell, never knew they had a £1 million sweetener thrown at them straight away.

They have to take out a mortgage but the mortgage is paid for them by the state – and then when they leave parliament they sell the house, pay off the mortgage and trouser the profits

so they have no extra costs being in London.

Pondo – arf arf.
You don’t appear to have an intelligent comment to make; if you do, here’s your opportunity.
The interim sector is, largely, invisible to the majority.
I’m part of it so a fact-based response from you would be…helpful otherwise I’ll categorise your earlier post under ‘lobotomised chimp’.

5% of the working population is an under-estimste as it’s based on salaried employees in permanent roles.
Look at professional interims with arrangements outside of IR35 and day rates north of £600/day – there are loads

Great point, higher income earners are much more likely to be contracting and/or self employed.

They are also probably technically earning salaries of about £9k a year and actually skewing the numbers down.

Loads? How jolly scientific

That’s sort of the whole premise, it would be impossible to get clear yearly income numbers for people being paid in this way. The numbers often aren’t realised yearly, that’s why they are taxed much less.

5% of the working population is an under-estimste as it’s based on salaried employees in permanent roles.

Nope – its based on tax returns! You can alos get the stats including those with unearned income

It it closer to 5% that the 1% I misread but it include all income from all sources not just saleried

The whole thing of buying a house in London on expenses, selling at a later date, and keeping the profit, disappeared many years ago. MPs can now only claim rental costs and then only if they have a constituency outside London, don’t get a grace & favour property in London and don’t already own a property in London.

Johnson hasn’t thrown a protective ring around cox

You know you're in trouble when both 'The Mirror' and 'The Mail' are gunning for you – and not even with the same story. pic.twitter.com/Zl0cEU3HcE

— Jimmy (@JimmySecUK) November 10, 2021

If cox is forced out even more of his MPs will be pissed

4 MPs have been caught lobbying for gambling companies

IDS broke rules lobbying for sanitiser Co.

Johnson himself is still under investigation for flat & holiday

Edit- missed out Kawczsinky for mining lobbying & bullying

And the stitch up of Dacre becoming head of OFCOM will be another cronyism case…

Its not straight forward, i make a very good living probably the same as an MP and live in the North of England. However we only have my income coming into our household so in practical terms we have the equivalent of two median incomes.. not complaining!

An MP has a virtually bottomless pit of expenses, allowances that i dont have so i would expect an MP to be able to have a reasonable quality of life without resorting to “fiddles”

In respect to Mr Cox… his constituency voters dont want someone running about on their behalf fighting for social justice, housing etc. What they want is Mr Cox to come out swinging (legally) when their NIMBY existence is threatened by planning, infrastructure, public transport etc.

He is exactly what they want… a bluewall that wont fall.

Boris needs to be very careful, the Tory old guard have lots of buses…

Could be a night of the long knives? After all they have done a “Julias Ceaser” on more popular PMs than Boris.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/10/tory-party-vice-chair-andrew-bowie-resigns-in-protest-over-sleaze

Tory party vice-chair Andrew Bowie resigns in protest over sleaze
MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine becomes first party figure to step down as a matter of conscience over scandal

The Conservative MP Andrew Bowie has announced he will resign as a vice-chair of the party in the wake of the sleaze scandal engulfing Boris Johnson.

Bowie said he requested to step down but agreed to stay in post until a successor has been appointed. He believed he could not continue to defend the government after the prime minister’s botched bid to save a colleague from suspension and overhaul the standards system.

In respect to Mr Cox… his constituency voters dont want someone running about on their behalf fighting for social justice, housing etc. What they want is Mr Cox to come out swinging (legally) when their NIMBY existence is threatened by planning, infrastructure, public transport etc.

He is exactly what they want… a bluewall that wont fall.

I agree with the sentiments, ie many traditional Tory voters couldn’t give a monkeys how self-serving their MP is as long as they also serves their interests (voters generally sadly don’t care that much)

However you have chosen the wrong example imo. The reason Geoffrey Cox represents a safe Tory seat is purely down to the collapse of the LibDem vote following the coalition government.

Previous to that Cox had a small majority of about 3k. In fact far from being a “blue wall’ seat the LibDems have on a couple of occasions won the seat.

The most likely reason Cox might hang onto his seat next election, should he stand, will be because Nick Clegg destroyed the credibility of the LibDems, otherwise I think it would be a certain LibDem win.

Salaries aside….. is being an MP not a full-time job?

The apparent incompetence of the current batch of (in particular, Tory) politicians is staggering – but maybe it’s not incompetence after all? Maybe they are just too busy to concentrate on what they are supposed to be doing?

Pondo – arf arf.
You don’t appear to have an intelligent comment to make; if you do, here’s your opportunity.
The interim sector is, largely, invisible to the majority.
I’m part of it so a fact-based response from you would be…helpful otherwise I’ll categorise your earlier post under ‘lobotomised chimp’.

Cool story, bro – categorise away if it makes you happy.

ernie seems to be drowning in the mire of the questionably excellent debating skillz he has created for himself.

Paterson, at least, resigned.

most of them never have had a proper job – its been internships, party appointments etc etc

I think you’ll find the majority of them have had real, external jobs. There’s a lot of bias and prejudice being expressed based on out of date information and – rightly – anger at those who take the piss and get away with it.

The apparent incompetence of the current batch of (in particular, Tory) politicians is staggering – but maybe it’s not incompetence after all? Maybe they are just too busy to concentrate on what they are supposed to be doing?

And that should be the key issue for the public. If its not a full time job, then we should be paying for fewer of them.

And that should be the key issue for the public. If its not a full time job, then we should be paying for fewer of them.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any performance/quality measures for MPs. It’s just down to “if you do a poor job you’ll be voted out” – which I think we can all acknowledge is an unrealistic expectation in modern party politics.

So with that, (largely tory) MPs are motivated to do as little as possible for their actual job – whilst just stopping short of being quite so terrible that they’ll get voted out (thus giving them maximum time to devote to nest-feathering/self-promotion/aide-shagging).

So all that happens is that “quality” just gets eroded and eroded. We shouldn’t be pushing for fewer MPS, or less/more pay for them, we should be pushing for them to be doing a better job, representing their constituents for 38 hours a week….. not however much is left over when they have finished working for themselves.

I’m a firm believer in “what gets measured gets done” – the question is: how should we be measuring MPs performance?

Turning up to vote in parliament, attendance at committees etc, is one clear performance measure.

Anything else risks subjective political application, and as has been pointed out, elected officials are not voted for on personal performance.

My MP, Mr Douglas Ross has been a bit quiet on the second jobs thing, maybe a good thing as he has three. His Twitter feed is the usual of just attacking the SNP…

Turning up to vote in parliament, attendance at committees etc, is one clear performance measure.

I agree that is clear/measurable – but is it any kind of useful indicator of their performance? Also, do you think somebody being paid that much should be measured on the basis of “showing up”? Or should we be aiming higher than that (which was my point).

Anything else risks subjective political application, and as has been pointed out, elected officials are not voted for on personal performance.

Really? ANYTHING else is invalid, because MPs can’t be trusted to mark their own homework? So the answer is… nothing?

Every other working person in the UK has their performance measured against predefined expectations…. Certainly people earning that kind of money do. MPs should be no different.

Also, do you think somebody being paid that much should be measured on the basis of “showing up”?

It would be a good start, I don’t see how being absent from the chamber is representing your constituents if you’re not listening to the debates and voting on behalf of your voters.

As I said earlier. Hourly rate (high) but charged against “projects” and administered from a central pot by party. “Books” to be signed off by independent accountants and publicly available.
Std free accomodation and staffing.

Wow holy wilful misinterpretation batman – I didn’t say anything else “is invalid” I said it risks subjective political application. The question was – what can be measured? I would think that actually turning up to do the job is not an unreasonable baseline of performance measurement that is universally applied, although I accept that other views may differ. Another objective and measurable criterion is how many votes they got (well, objective and measurable according to rational people – Mr Trump does not agree)

I don’t see how being absent from the chamber is representing your constituents

what about the constituency work they do when they’re not at Westminster?

MPs can now only claim rental costs

I suppose it depends on the guidelines of whether they can rent from themselves or their partner and what the penalty is for forgetting to mention something :-)

They seem to have interesting abilities in ascertaining how the rules apply to thems,similar to the benefit scroungers they used to vilify in olden times.

It would be a good start, I don’t see how being absent from the chamber is representing your constituents if you’re not listening to the debates and voting on behalf of your voters.

Ah but they don’t really vote on behalf of their voters, oddly that’s not their job.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Burke 1774

There’s so many different variations of what MP’s do, that to define an objective performance scale would be very hard.

Some are regular attenders, active debaters, posting motions and amendments, etc. Some are well known for being very back seat but influencing through negotiation and influence. Some push for junior and senior minister and eventually cabinet roles, some never seek the positions and are true constituency MP’s.

The best people to judge whether an MP is any good is their fellow MP’s. They know who the liars, cheats, workshy and trough snouters are. It’s up to them to judge, and that’s what eg: the standards committees are supposed to be for. But there’s too many old mates, all in it together or just ‘don’t rock the boat’ because of fear of the whips office or deselection etc., that it’s all sinking under a gloop of corruption.

I am very mildly hopeful that the fresh intake of red wall MP’s, being asked to defend the indefensible and then look ridiculous for doing so when the back track happens might start to effect change. It’s rarely / ever that the new intake are the sleaze ridden; it’s the old guard, old school tie, been at it with their mates for 20 years ones and they need weeding out.

I suppose it depends on the guidelines of whether they can rent from themselves or their partner

Or, as some do, rent out their own house and then rent another for themselves to keep the money flowing in.

it’s the old guard, old school tie, been at it with their mates for 20 years ones and they need weeding out

Yep…

There’s so many different variations of what MP’s do, that to define an objective performance scale would be very hard.

Turning it into a check box exercise never really works out that well,you end up with good box tickers.

Or, as some do, rent out their own house and then rent another for themselves to keep the money flowing in.

Or in some cases… renting out the house that they had the mortgage payments paid for by us before the rule change… and renting another home paid for by us now.

Eg. Smart old Coxy.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-mp-geoffrey-coxs-two-25429742

It’s rarely / ever that the new intake are the sleaze ridden; it’s the old guard, old school tie, been at it with their mates for 20 years ones and they need weeding out.

I’d like to see MP’s position have a maximum career length, similar to the two terms a US president can do, maybe 20 years as a MP could be the max.

vazaha Free Member
ernie seems to be drowning in the mire of the questionably excellent debating skillz he has created for himself.

Paterson, at least, resigned.

It took a moment to figure out why someone should feel the need to make that remark as it clearly doesn’t contribute anything to the Tory sleaze debate, and Paterson and Cox are clearly two completely different people.

I then I realised that what undoubtedly triggered that bizarre comment was my remark claiming that Nick Clegg had destroyed the credibility of the LibDems.

That’s what it was wasn’t it vazaha? Criticism of the LibDems is never goes down very well on STW, and for good reason. The LibDems are the
archetypal middle-class liberal party. The appeal to STW is obvious.

However typically when push comes to shove all the fine moral platitudes go out of the window. Without a moment’s hesitation Nick Clegg was happy to make his grubby little deal with a vicious right-wing party and impose austerity on the people with devastating consequences, all in return for a huge ministerial car and the CV flattering Deputy Prime Minister title.

I know that I am grossly oversimplifying, not all middle-class liberals are morally bankrupt. Charles Kennedy is an excellent example of one genuinely committed to social democracy, he certainly wouldn’t have enabled the Tories. Sadly there are far too many like Clegg.

It would be a good start, I don’t see how being absent from the chamber is representing your constituents if you’re not listening to the debates and voting on behalf of your voters.

Surely depends why you are absent from the chamber, and what is being debated? Friday afternoon discussion on the technicalities of some uncontroversial policy that will definitely by voted through anyway v’s actually making it back to your constituency to talk to constituents about issues that really affect them.

I recon you could produce some kind of scoreboard, so that the public could gauge their performance based on some kind of metrics:
Votes/debates attended
Members of what committees, hours spent accordingly
Some sort of measure of how active they are in their constituency? Not sure what this might be.
Expenses claimed (ranked against other MPs).
Other paid positions held, and hours committed to each.
And some sort of “bellend” rating…. maybe how many times they’ve been referred to the standards commission or something?

Dunno, something like this

Errmmm – they get a house bought for them in london they can then sell and pocket the profits and get all fares home paid. so no – no london weighting as they have no extra costs

tjagain – have you got a link or anything for this? All I can find is information that their rent or associated expenses are paid:

https://fullfact.org/online/mps-free-housing-alcohol/

tjagain – have you got a link or anything for this?

You won’t find one, because it’s wrong

tjagain – have you got a link or anything for this? All I can find is information that their rent or associated expenses are paid:

They used to get 2nd mortgages paid but no longer, so they do a buy to let and rent it to another MP instead 🙄

On a related note – I see Mr Sunak has started his run for the job of next UK Prime Minister. But of course, he doesn’t need to work.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59245737 –++-++-

An MP has a virtually bottomless pit of expenses,

C’mon Oldman I’d expect better from you.

Work should reimburse ANY costs that are spent to do a job, but the problem we have is a system that for lots of these ‘expenses’ they shouldn’t be lumped in with MP Expenses. Offices, staff, infrastructure – these should be provided by the State and used by whoever is the MP at the time.

Also because many folk never do jobs that have large amounts of expenses, they don’t actually understand them. For example, for probably a decade my expenses exceeded my salary by a considerable margin (and I was a high earner), regularly at +£10k pcm and often over £20k pcm.

The whole system is clouded in bollox too, and yes while there will be MP’s taking the p1ss, the vast majority will be wasting considerable time on the increased admin. The whole system needs sorting IMO.

Good example here

Bradley is a clown but sitting on a comfy Leave majority , his base wont care that he appears to leave no time to work for them…

Fun maths quiz…

If Tory MP, Ben Bradley works 30 hours per week on one executive board

And then 30 hours per week on another

How many hours does that leave per week for him to be an MP for Mansfield?https://t.co/BJTLGBtQeP

— Marina Purkiss (@MarinaPurkiss) November 10, 2021