It is not the same excuse.

It isn't about not getting the top people for the job if we don't pay enough. It's about making the job accessible to those who are not as well off as David Cameron and who can do the job as a hobby.



This argument is a bit of a straw man. It isn't the fact it is good wage that is the issue or someone on low or no pay would jump at the chance. They can do that now if they want to join a party and try for selection . No qualifications required! The issue is would ordinary people chuck in a decent career to do the job?

Even you don't agree with that as the reason for a high MP wage you must see that anyone who is talented and can get a career that pays say £40K or similar is not going to give that up for a chance to earn not a great deal more for a few years. Whereas the wealthy will.

It is like sending your kids to public school. Mostly a preserve of the rich who can take the hit of the costs. If MP's wages are too low parliament will end up the same way, worse than it is now.

Would everyone here turn down a similar increase in their own income?
I would be tempted to take it, I must admit. Perhaps I am lacking moral fibre...

It seems to me that the whole argument that they need paying more is flawed. Politicians go into politics for some reasons aside from money - power, they like hearing themselves talk and sometimes because they want to try to do good. We are told you need to pay more to attract the poorer candidates - but pay is aleady way over the national average. We're told we have to pay more to attract talented people from other fields - but what top surgeon would wish to give up a career to go into politics unless he were that way inclined in the first place? Wouldn't we want our most talented people such as doctors, etc to use their skills in medicine anyway? We are told they need paying more so they don't feel the need to fiddle expenses - but dishonest people will still be dishonest if you pay them twice as much. I can see no reason or possible justification for paying more when they are already on nearly 3 times average salary.

If they are to have more pay then we should have a rolling scheme whereby each of them is subjected to a televised lie-detector test each 3 months and anyone failing is dismissed.

I wish RLFans would bring that in, and ban liars for life.

bye bye Dally

I would love to see the figures of just how many MPs who lost their seats over the past 50 years had no alternative but to sign on the dole and rely on the state to support them

I doubt there are that many on here who have been involved in legislating to ensure the salaries and benefits of others were capped at 1%

You idiot.

£65K ish is not a lot to have every aspect of your life open to public scrutiny. Many MPs are from a legal background.

You could get that as a newly qualified solicitor at a half-decent London firm. If you are at the commerical bar, and any good, you will clear £100K in your first year.

looking in the mirror again?

This.... The truth is that MP's are actually underpaid for what they are expected to do - Granted, some of them are incompetent and should never have been elected into their jobs in the first place (though that is the result of an even more incompetent electorate). However, if you want the job doing properly, maybe it would be wiser to offer a decent, competitive salary, then you might attract people who are actually upto the job?

The problem with this whole subject, is that we live in a society where we pay celebrities and sportsmen vast amounts of cash (and seem happy to do so), yet we elect people to run and sort our lives for us and only want to give them relative peanuts in comparison - Its quite bizarre in my opinion.

The most ironic thing was listening to Jeremy Vine being all self-righteous about this on his radio show, yet wasn't exactly forthcoming about how much he takes off the taxpayer in salary for doing 10 hours work a week - I'm betting its more than those overpaid MP's??