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Have a browse the the register of interests. Look at the revolving doors between defense contractors and MPs and tech companies employing technological illiterate ex mps for huge sums. Look at the payments by private health companies to MPs. Theyn look at the emplying of family members on exp-enses, the absurd expenses claims, the huge scam that is buying london houses on expenses and trousering the profits
The post Blair labour intake art much better than previous labour lots who were almost as bad as the tories still are.
Its an Augean stable of corruption dressed up as other things. Don't kid yourself our parliment is clean. Its not and its easy to find the evidence. follow the money
TJ - are you OK, hun?
JP
You voting for Jo Swinson then Chewy? 😉
Jo Swinson ... Noooo 😱😱😱 ... coz she is weird. Not sure why but when she speaks I keep seeing her front teeth ... her teeth ... look at those teeth. 😮
I am voting for Brexit party at the moment even without Nigel Farage coz all the mainstream parties are just bunch of jokers taking people for a ride.
Fair point.
While Nigel is a model of honest, trustworthy integrity with all our best interests at heart
Oi JP - thats how I sign myself in real life!
I am fine. I just get exasperated when people are willfully blind to the obvious corruption and criminality of the UK parliament
Far too many of them and a clear majority end up using their position to enrich themselves in the service of various groups who pay them not in our service and almost all of them engaged in fraud over expenses.
TJ, the revolving door you refer to also applies to civil servants and senior MoD personnel.
ACOBA was set up to vet these sorts of moves and either approve or reject but have proved to be singularly inept in carrying out their remit.
MPs, generally, are no more venal than the general population - yes, I'm sure you can provide examples which suit your argument - so if the control process is almost non-existent it's hardly surprising the revolving door continues revolving.
You know, as well as anyone else, that companies will always attempt to buy influence from MPs. Sort the process and apply rigorous controls.
Unless and until that happens nothing will change.
Cameron said the next big scandal would be lobbying - 100% correct - but failed to do anything to either prevent or control it.
Indeed it does Frank - the corruption goes right thru the establishment
IME MPs are much more venal than the people I know and have met. But then I do not move in right wing circles where venal behaviour is much more common 😉
While Nigel is a model of honest, trustworthy integrity with all our best interests at heart
That is not really important at all politicians are the same. Yes, they are and yes they are.
All those details they give in their manifesto etc are just bunch of hot air to be honest.
You don't have to be genius to see how each party that formed the govt become parasitic after a while let alone for so long (I am referring to all the main parties since their inception).
oh ya ... business rate ... FFS! Talking about cutting off the root of SME before they even start. How stupid can they get? Where do they think large business evolved from?
TJ, the problem is that the 'establishment' has been allowed to almost self-regulate.
Develop proper controls and apply them rigorously with suitable punishment for transgressions.
Think of it like prima donna footie players challenging referees; if they were given straight red card - you're off - and backed-up by refs association that would go a long way to eliminating the problem.
Simplistic but you get the point?
Oh absolutely - and the fact that they were all at it means that any reform is impossible - thats why they never cleaned up expenses properly like they did at Holyrood. No buying houses as investments on expenses
Its just another aspect of our dysfunctional parliament
I think the only way we differ is you do not seem to blame them for it. I do.
I've always thought that MPs should be paid more. It's madness when the VC of a provincial university can easily be paid three times the salary of the PM.
I say a flat rate of 250K for an MP, but no expenses allowed. Far simpler, and would probably attract a higher calibre of person to the job.
JP
Have you read this Uncle Jezza? It’s details the whole corrupt club. Everyone should read this book. If they did, we’d certainly never see another Tory government
TJ - oops, you're so wrong.
I absolutely do blame the 'establishment' for gaming the system - but we've made it easy for them.
Clear rules & regs, police them effectively, prosecute transgressions.
Suggest you look at my posts on various threads railing against ACOBA, MP's total packages including heavily subsidised bars and restaurants.
I hate to say it but.....we could be agreeing violently.
chewkw
I am voting for Brexit party at the moment even without Nigel Farage coz all the mainstream parties are just bunch of jokers taking people for a ride.
Y'know, you're right.
Whenever I read your political posts, I'm tempted to vote for stricter immigration policies as well. 😉
Rusty^^ don't be fooled; chewy is a faux geordie masquerading as a malay.
He's probably whiter/more white than you or I.
Chewy is Farage - and I claim my fiver.
Who knows or dares to dream? 🙂
So, what I'm reading into this is that I should get elected as an MP, then profit?
MPs can only claim rent for their second properties. The great irony of the expenses scandal is that when you add the cost of new bureaucracy created to the expenses now claimed, it costs a lot more than the old system - purity always has a cost.
I say a flat rate of 250K for an MP, but no expenses allowed.
Doesn't work, you need expenses otherwise the MP for Shetland and orkney (or anyone for a far distant constituency) is massively disadvantaged compared to say the MP for Maidenhead.
Rusty - I don't know; I definitely don't dare to dream; shudder.......
250k flat rate plus a train pass.
MPs can only claim rent for their second properties. The great irony of the expenses scandal is that when you add the cost of new bureaucracy created to the expenses now claimed, it costs a lot more than the old system – purity always has a cost.
I say a flat rate of 250K for an MP, but no expenses allowed.
Doesn’t work, you need expenses otherwise the MP for Shetland and orkney (or anyone for a far distant constituency) is massively disadvantaged compared to say the MP for Maidenhead.
Just give them enough that it doesn't really matter. If you're paid enough then, say, the 40k difference between those close and those far away is fairly irrelevant proportionally.
JP
I think it is a pretty important principle that every MP should receive a similar financial reward for their work in parliament and that there should be no financial disincentive for them to return to their constituency.
the 40k difference between those close and those far away is fairly irrelevant proportionally.
Unless you are the one that's 40k down and then your lol why the f am I worth 40k less than that guy? I'll make up the difference somehow!
Plus the whole pay them more and they won't be as corrupt/will be better at the job thing has bee disproved. Never underestimate the human capacity for greed or venality
Just received my Lib Dem candidate flyer through the post.
I live in a con/LibDem area, so have no real choice but LibDem, however....grrrr
What the hell has happened to politics?
The entire letter is basically slagging off the conservatives, trawling up such nonsense as, “who would have imagined that the conservatives in Westminster would kick out winston Churchill’s own grandson, just because he had the audacity to disagree with leadership” wtf has that got to do with what you are offering my county and my country?
The letter just spouts similar playground twaddle until somewhere around the end, there are three lame, non committal bullet points about underfunded schools and plastic!
It’s embarrassing and shameful, I want to read about who the mp is, how passionate he is about his community and what the party is fighting for... it’s going to hurt ticking that idiots box
On pying MPs - I disagree completely. they should not be highly paid at all. The should receive the national average wage ( or a small multiple there off ie 2x)an they should be only able to claim receipted expenses and those should be very limited. That way we get people in there who want to do good, not those who see it as a route to riches.
I think that would vastly improve the quality of MPs because you get people with a public service ethos not those with their snouts in the trough
ALL outside remuneration should be banned.
Mefty - are you sure they are no longer allowed to claim for buying a house on expenses?
Or don't pay MPs at all.
Then they wouldn't be in it for the money and its no longer a career option. We might get a better bunch then.
While no job is guaranteed, an MP in anything but a safe seat has to think carefully and plan for when then are no longer an MP, i.e. possibly in a few weeks time. Going from £80K per year to nothing in a day means you have to be ready for it (via other interests).
To me the safe seat MPs can abuse things the most. My constituency has a horrible person as MP and the constituency next to mine has an even worse one yet they have been there for decades. They simply can't fail.
Or don’t pay MPs at all.
Then they wouldn’t be in it for the money and its no longer a career option. We might get a better bunch then
Daft idea, you’d only have really wealthy people running the country as was the case before 1911 when MPs first received a salary.
If we paid them the average salary like TJ suggested, we’d just end up with a lower quality of chancer - really, we as a society need to value corruption more than we do or the lack of it in our politicians. Some of the polls posted earlier suggest that people trust Boris less than Corbyn, but they’d still rather Boris ran the country - that is the underlying issue.
Maybe an official, audited - corrupt shit index like a cross between a credit record and China’s social record system - but for politicians only? Radical openness and a complete lack of privacy for politicians in return for a high salary.
On pying MPs – I disagree completely. they should not be highly paid at all.
I'm with this. Saying that paying them more would mean they deceive less seems naive.
I'd like to see monthly, publicly available online expenses receipts as well.
In addition to this other income should be declared and made easily available to the public.
Or don’t pay MPs at all.
Then they wouldn’t be in it for the money and its no longer a career option. We might get a better bunch then.
Paying them nothing would mean only the previously rich would be able to become an MP no?
Again - look to Holyrood - ALL expenses are published online, ALL expenses must have a receipt.
NOt paying MPs would mean only the rich could become one
Paying them much less and stopping second jobs would mean only people with a public service ethos would want to become one - the chancers would go elsewhere
Kerley - they get huge payoffs of many times the average salary when they lose their seats.
Paying them much less and stopping second jobs would mean only people with a public service ethos would want to become one – the chancers would go elsewhere
You get chancers and corrupt individuals at every pay grade. Why do you think so many police forces around the world have issues with corruption, average to poor pay clearly doesn’t help them recruit only those with a strong sense of civic duty.
The should receive the national average wage ( or a small multiple there off ie 2x)
Average wages is about £29k and MP earns £76, 011, which 2.6 the average wage...
Looks like a disastrous manifesto:
I fear few people will actually read it. 🙁
I’ve always thought that MPs should be paid more. It’s madness when the VC of a provincial university can easily be paid three times the salary of the PM.
+1
If you hired a succesion of rubbish plumbers at a certain rate you'd soon conclude that you need to pay a bit more to get a decent one. MPs are no different.
£79,468 for a London based job??? You'd struggle to hire a decent Software Engineer or Project Manager for that. (Somewhere there will be a self employed plumber or two making that.)
If we want talented people in politics we need to pay MPs way, way more, stop poking into their private lives and make political discourse a bit friendlier.
Just going through the manifesto – guess what – only one reference about looking into integrating independent schools. All that needless discussion on abolition from day one.
Abolition is still Labour policy. Manifestos are just a set of non-binding promises. They can do things that aren't in their manifesto and fail to do things that are.
So what are you planning on doing to change it?
I'm going to hold my nose and vote for anyone that keeps the NRG supporting Tory incumbent out...
I'm reluctantly involved in local politics but frankly it's like gargling sewage dealing with the councillors of all sides.
It's all horse trading ... labour councillors support Tory if they can then get some motion that works for their family business... Tory councillors hold shares in companies awarded contracts because labour won't challenge that if they get away with something else.
We shouldn't pay them, but we should freeze all their assets on election thereby forcing them to claim benefits through the normal channels. This would achieve two things: ensure that only people who really want to make a difference would stand; and dramatically improve the benefit system.
I fear few people will actually read it
What? CityAM? then yes, I agree with you, it's a turgid mess of a "newspaper" that should've been put out it's misery years ago.
All those details they give in their manifesto etc are just bunch of hot air to be honest.
Very true. However the business* you are choosing to vote for doesn't actually have a manifesto.
*to be very clear, they are a business, not a party. This means they have income, not donations. Income is covered under different rules from donations.
Limited liability company filing rules allow the Brexit Party to trade past the date of the General Election and not file its accounts (dated back to 31 December 2019) until August 2020. It won’t have to declare its ‘persons of significant control’ until 21 February next year and that won’t be available for public scrutiny until 6 March 2020.
Nige has a long history of using limited liability companies to take the piss.
On corruption – there is no doubt at all that the majority of MPs are corrupt crooks
TBH, if you want real corruption in a startling "Take your Breath Away" stylee, then (if you dare) get involved in local politics, where; counterintuitively if we are to believe your remedy works (lower pay and limited expenses) the financial rigging, blatant favouritism, and cronyism are not just rife, but expected.
The whole essence of the present Tory party distilled into one clip...
https://twitter.com/bbcnwt/status/1197464428935045123?s=21
If we're going to get hot under the collar about the Brexit Party being a company, then let's remind ourselves that Momentum is as well, and John Landsman is it's corporate Head.
Very democratic
We shouldn’t pay them, but we should freeze all their assets on election thereby forcing them to claim benefits through the normal channels. This would achieve two things: ensure that only people who really want to make a difference would stand; and dramatically improve the benefit system.
And what would motivate them to be MP's other than an appetite for loving wallowing in bullshit and corruption?
There are far more direct way's to make a difference... (teaching, medicine for example).
Daft idea, you’d only have really wealthy people running the country as was the case before 1911 when MPs first received a salary.
Not necessarily "really wealthy", just people who don't need to work for a living and aren't interested in getting any richer. People with a public service ethos perhaps?
Although why is being really wealthy such a bad thing in itself?
I suspect after that performance, like Jacob, Priti will find herself "Campaigning hard in her own constituency"
Priti is staggeringly cold. She is simply a horrible human being.
Its quite something isn't it? Given the present company she keeps, to stand out as being particularly callous and uncaring.
If you hired a succesion of rubbish plumbers at a certain rate you’d soon conclude that you need to pay a bit more to get a decent one. MPs are no different.
Execpt of course when it comes to public servants when according to the tories the amount of money we pay them is irrelevant
The very fact others are grossly overpaid does not mean that we have to overpay mps. Paying them huge sums ( and the headline pay they get is a % of their actually remuneration in most cases) doesn't seem to have got us a decent quality of politicians
The very fact others are grossly overpaid does not mean that we have to overpay mps.
What is overpaid? Do you think state school headteachers are overpaid or NHS doctors?
Re. MP's pay, I would double their pay but add other requirements to this such as:
No additional income to be made in the period they are an MP or in the 6 month after they leave office. Basically, I'll double your pay but that will be your only source of income.
All expenses on line and not paid without receipt.
Cap the amount they can pay assistant and/or a ban on family members working in their office
and no doubt a few others I haven't thought of!
If we’re going to get hot under the collar about the Brexit Party being a company, then let’s remind ourselves that Momentum is as well, and John Landsman is it’s corporate Head.
This should be bigger news than it is - it’s as much a threat as is the status of the BP.
If it’s true that is?
If you hired a succesion of rubbish plumbers at a certain rate you’d soon conclude that you need to pay a bit more to get a decent one. MPs are no different.
Execpt of course when it comes to public servants
Bollocks. You underpay nurses/soldiers/maths teachers you end up with a shortage of good nurses/soldiers/maths teachers. It's an identical problem.
Part of the problem is most people have no idea what other people earn like the guy on news night "calling Labour out" because he earns >£80k but he's definitely not in the top 5% of earners - except according to the ONS you are
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-50514656
Really OOB - so why then when we are short hundreds of thousnds of medical staff does the pay not go up
Of course its nonsense - but its nonsense that is tory policy. I have actually heard them state this.
Not necessarily “really wealthy”, just people who don’t need to work for a living
That is "really wealthy" for most people.
Although why is being really wealthy such a bad thing in itself?
You could argue that there isn't (or you could argue otherwise) but it's highly likely that the really wealthy won't be good at representing people who aren't really wealthy, because they just don't get it. As we're seeing right now, in the other topic running on this very thread. Politicians can be told how bad thing are for the poor, but they often don't really understand - internally they'll invent justifications for the poor being poor - 'they must not be working hard enough' or 'they must be making bad decisions' otherwise why wouldn't they be well off? If you've never had been in a really difficult position* then chances are you really don't see how the system can **** you over when you most need help, and it's often not your fault. Most rich or even middle class people just don't get this, which is why most of them vote Tory - they don't see a reason why they shouldn't.
If only wealthy people became politicians, then you would only get wealthy people's interests represented (even more so than now). Which is exactly what used to happen, which is why they changed it. Even now it's not easy to basically quit or suspend your job and take off months to campaign.
*not that I'm claiming to have experienced true difficulty - I haven't - but I try to listen to those who have
If you hired a succesion of rubbish plumbers at a certain rate you’d soon conclude that you need to pay a bit more to get a decent one. MPs are no different.
I've found no correlation between competence and rate. If anything it's a reverse correlation. My conclusion is generally if I want a good job I have to do it myself.
So lets start by sacking 90% of politicians.
but he’s definitely not in the top 5% of earners – except according to the ONS you are
Being in the top x% of earners is not the same as being in the top x% of income.
Even assuming DECLARED income people (when most of the really wealth don't declare) are easily divided by bunching salary into broad swathes... i.e. top 50% or top 5%
Even if you add a load of hated bankers who previously received million pound bonus's (how many?) then they are in the same group as an MP or someone earning 80k PER HOUR if you use 5% yet most of the wealth is in the top 0.01%....
The lower/middle and upper working classes are deluded into fighting each other.
You underpay nurses/soldiers/maths teachers you end up with a shortage of good nurses/soldiers/maths teachers.
Do you actually know many teachers/police officers/nurses etc? I do, loads of them, including many who have left their jobs. Not a single one of them did so because they were underpaid. They left because they were stressed out of their minds by being overworked, taken for granted, and essentially ***** over by a system that sees them as nothing more than automatons and doesn't allow them to do their jobs. Those that are still in their jobs are there because of their frankly astonishing commitment to what they do. I really can assure you that in most public service professions, money is barely a consideration.
You underpay nurses/soldiers/maths teachers you end up with a shortage of good nurses/soldiers/maths teachers.
Do you actually know many teachers/police officers/nurses etc? I do, loads of them, including many who have left their jobs. Not a single one of them did so because they were underpaid. I really can assure you that in most public service professions, money is barely a consideration.
Ok, I concede the point. No need to increase pay for public servants.
DazH that is also a good point. I think most doctors and experienced nurses are reasonably OK with the pay. Its the other things around the job that drives folk out ie not being able to do your job properly, poor management etc
OOB - what you do not understand here is the public service ethos. I want people with that public service ethos in parliament. Not the venal ******** that make up the vast majority of them
Its something I find is very common in the right wing - the lack of understanding of the public service ethos and the "price of everything, value of nothing" attitude
many who have left their jobs. Not a single one of them did so because they were underpaid. They left because they were stressed out of their minds by being overworked,
Would they have still left if they were paid £1MM per year?
DazH that is also a good point. I think most doctors and experienced nurses are reasonably OK with the pay. Its the other things around the job that drives folk out ie not being able to do your job properly, poor management etc
I'm not following.... why would they leave a job where they can at least provide a positive benefit but have to put up with some crap for one in the Sewage pit of Westminster where the entire role is dealing with crap and get paid less and they can make no positive contribution?
No need to increase pay for public servants.
It's about basic fairness, which I would never expect you to understand. Where I work we pay junior web developers more than a senior paramedic or social worker (and the web devs continually moan about their pay!). I doubt you see that as a big problem but I do because it undermines the simple principle of value for money. As TJ says, we have a system which prioritises cost over value. As far as I'm concerned a paramedic or social worker is much more valuable to society than someone who can write (bad) javascript code.
stevextc - public service ethos / wanting to improve the lot of the fellow human.
Two things tories do not understand.,
https://fullfact.org/election-2019/labour-manifesto-2019/Looks like Labour are being pretty truthful to me.
stevextc – public service ethos / wanting to improve the lot of the fellow human.
Two things tories do not understand.,
You seem to be missing it as well, does that make you a Tory?
Are you trying to say a state school headteacher has no public service ethos or a NHS doctor?
Don't get me wrong I can see why some leave based on the barriers that are put up to prevent them improving the lot of fellow humans and all the admin crap they deal with but if that is their reason to leave then going into politics seems like the worst possible move.
You underpay nurses/soldiers/maths teachers you end up with a shortage of good nurses/soldiers/maths teachers.
Do you actually know many teachers/police officers/nurses etc? I do, loads of them, including many who have left their jobs. Not a single one of them did so because they were underpaid. I really can assure you that in most public service professions, money is barely a consideration
Ok, I concede the point. No need to increase pay for public servants.
Where I work we pay junior web developers more than a senior paramedic or social worker (and the web devs continually moan about their pay!).
Yes, and you're saying those pay levels have no impact on recruitment. ...and I've conceding that point to you.
Steve - I think we were at cross purposes. Yo asked why a teacher would want to go into government I thought.
The loony-bin Telegraph woman on QT last night. You'd think people would give up defending the Tory economic ethos of giving it to the market to deal with.
The Telegraph are always going to pile into labour. I think the more worrying thing was the genuine hostility to the Labour Manifesto from the studio audience.
Areas like Bolton are absolutely nailed on 'Labour Heartlands'. Or were. But they have been shown as also very, very Brexity. Its going to be really interesting to see what happens in these type of places. The Brexit party are standing candidates in places like this where there is a massive natural hostility to the Tories, but the electorate don't seem to impressed with labours fence-sitting either. God knows how thats going to pan out.
Steve – I think we were at cross purposes. Yo asked why a teacher would want to go into government I thought.
Nope... I'm just saying if you are the type of person who wants to help your fellow man (or woman) there are more way's to do it than being a politician.
Some people can thrive in what to me would be a toxic atmosphere .. and good on them but if the crap around being a teacher, doctor etc. is what is driving you away then Westminster or even local politics will probably make you ill - seriously ill and most likely you'll achieve NOTHING other than making yourself ill.
Areas like Bolton are absolutely nailed on ‘Labour Heartlands’. Or were. But they have been shown as also very, very Brexity.
if the working people of Bolton choose brexit over a manifesto that will change their lives then quite frankly they deserve everything they get, and I’ll go and stand next to Rayban in the ‘working class people are idiots’ camp.
2016 was annoying, but forgivable on account of the lies and general ignorance. Not this time though. Working class people have a simple choice. If they fail once again to vote for their interests then they can expect little sympathy or understanding from anyone else.
Can somebody FACT CHECK inheritance tax and confirm the Tories have never cut it - since they've been in power (other than a standard lift of the limit by £12,000 which happened under Labour too.).
Because I can find articles (RWM) that are saying the Tories cut it? And Labour would reverse it.
Anyone with any solid stuff on that?
(Not that it will impact me!)
On corruption – there is no doubt at all that the majority of MPs are corrupt crooks
Does that include the SNP representatives, just out of interest? Or the greens?
In my office there is a small group of young folk, 25 - 30 years old, working class, earn well, slightly right leaning but generally anti-brexit and on no way Tory supporters. They are not in any way politically engaged but with throw the odd word in. They are, I suspect, like a lot of people around the country who don't engage on political threads on STW.
There view?
"Labour would win this election if they didn't have that moron Corbyn in charge."
"yes, it's a good job Abbot is not anywhere near the party now"
"what, she is?!"
"haha, no chance then, Bozza will walk it"
And you know what, I think they're right.
But is Corbyn a moron? Where did they get the idea that he was?
If Labour chose someone else and they had the same policies, would they be branded a moron too?