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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The MPs second job issue could have salience
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The MPs second job issue could have salience
Ed Miliband, inevitably given what’s happened this week, made MPs outside interests his primary focus at PMQs. The Labour approach is to ban second jobs and there is a vote tonight on the issue.
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I agree with the Header...
Ed won on the superficial soundbite today, but we all lose if we ban 2nd jobs.
- unless we hike up MPs salary significantly.
circa 60k pa is nothing. (ok, not compared to avearge etc, but you get my point) For many people who you would actually want to be an MP this would be a serious drop and considerable bar to standing for office.
Miliband and others have spent the day inserting a colonoscope up their own rectums, looking for new ideas.
A new PBer tipped a 100/1 winner.
Beat that
FPT
Mr Observer, In my original post on the Muslim poll (08.56), I pointed out that ...
"I know Muslims who feel strongly sympathetic towards people fighting for IS and al-Qaeda - 8% agree" That is worrying, and if it's true it means that over 200,000 British Muslims know someone with that view. And "a fifth of those polled said they thought Western liberal society could never be compatible with Islam." - that's around half a million.
I can quite believe that gobby Guardian readers will also be happy to show their liberal credentials in such a manner too, but the chance of them flying over to fight for ISIS or bombing trains is close to zero.
And the question about liberal democracy and Islam not being compatible could well score highly with non-Muslims too, but from a different demographic.
That said, I do have a strong level of sympathy with the idea that before going into parliament our MPs should have worked in the real world for a while.
He's just leaping atop another bandwagon.
Let us suppose he has had a win today. Was it worth it? Has he made headway on the economy? Or any other serious issue? How many people will enter the polling booth in May and think about this?
Anyway, I am off to perambulate with the hound.
Oh you said perambulate.
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Only kidding!
ELBOWing the six polls so far this week (inc. last night's YG) gives Lab a 0.5% lead
This increases to 1.0% going by the more traditional simple averages.
Take your pick
Despite what some on here claim, being an MP (or a good one ant any rate), require more hours than I care to work in a week an lots of commuting (unless you are a London MP)
It probably means that your other half would have to take on ALL of the child care, so you now have only 1 income to the household, so it's not just your salary that we are comparing here.
You want to remove financial barriers to ensure that anybody who has the desire can stand without fear.
If you don't, we end up with a situation where only those who are independently wealthy will be able... Oh, wait a minute!
It is a bit like wishing there were less sin in the world though, isn't it?
JackW was elected by the PB masses and will not be usurped in some shabby coup de theatre !!
To ensure that MPs were in touch with ordinary people I would try to make sure that more ordinary people were elected as MPs, and it might help if the concept of a career in politics died a death. A couple of tours of duty, ten years in all, is an awful long time to ask people to serve the public as a politician. It really is too much to expect them to sacrifice themselves for any longer.
"It's divisive, populist, ill-thought-out shit like this which really, really, REALLY makes me despise Miliband and all his greasy-pole cimbing ilk."
Apparently only 10% of the population make £60,000 or above. So the first thing posters on here better do is start trying to see the world as the overwhelming 90% of the population see it. What's more thinking about these slightly surprising figures I now understand why Cameron and his mob are so unpopular. They're seen as living on a different planet
a) The problem of career politicians:
b) The barrier to entry to Parliament if you deny ordinary business people access - beautifully put by Tapsell:
c) That there is no difference between pay and 'sponsorship'.
The cynical, general public will interpret what it means when an MP is 'sponsored'
More trivia from Ed, I'm afraid.
Might sound good in a goodie v baddie type discussion but what difference does it make to Mr and Mrs Average? Not a lot. Let's hear about jobs, mortgage rates, taxes, houses, etc.
If the choice was:-
1. Ban second jobs and pay backbench MPs £100,000 a year,
2. Keep things as they are,
I think most people would go for 2.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31618126
"Labour councillors in rotherham have tried that, but i think it helped them sweep stuff under the carpet."
Post of the day.
http://powerbase.info/index.php/David_Cameron
Anyway, I think I need a nice cup of camomile tea and some Chopin to calm down.
I'd say if they were capable of earning a lot more, but felt they would rather serve the country for 60k they would have passed the test as one of "the best".. if someone was solely interested in maintaining a luxury lifestyle, they aren't altruistic enough to be an MP
As for the other 90% of the population, I am sure they would love to earn 60k plus exes
For that reason I favour offering 'MP loans' on a similar basis to the student loan system where the money would be repayable out of future income above a certain level. This would also be a good way to detoxify the expenses issue.
Face it. You're all washed up.
I think it is perfectly fine to be working on your 2nd job early in the mornings / late at night / weekends, around the business of parliament..and as long as you still make time for constituents. There are plenty of normal people who do this, either trying to setup a little side business, from ebay selling to being a landlord etc.
One of the highest earning MPs is a lawyer, who co-founded a chambers. Should he be forced to remove himself from anything to do with what is a successful business, that seems very short sighted, but I maybe he should take a bit more of a back seat.
Another thought...if totally banned, we would basically be enforcing MPs to suffer a similar issue to women who take career breaks to have children. Those that take a total break for 5-10 years, many find it very difficult to get back into their former profession at the same level they were previously. If MPs are able to "keep their hand in", hopefully they should be able to return to that profession (but for that, maybe we should cut their very generous payoff).
"Post of the day."
Post of the day was Isam's 'What's the speed limit under Sharia Law'
You only had to listen to a snippet of Natalie Bennett's performance yesterday (and I felt a bit sorry for her) to understand the gulf in class between inexperienced politicians like her and the premier league bunch in the Commons.
Cameron and Miliband barely ever put a foot wrong. And look at Blair under the most menacing pressure over Iraq; he was - whether you agree with him or not - faultless in defence of his actions.
Imagine how clever, quick-witted and abreast of detail the top politicians are, compared to the average Joe. If I were an MP Youtube would be filled with my gaffes and people would be laughing at me. Yet I could earn £60k if I dragged a few big commissions in. And politicians are worth more than I am.
Not all mps will be paid the same. Tough.
No one wants career politicians who have never had a proper job but your suggestion will mean far more if our elected representatives are just that.
What you appear to be saying, is that the wealthy should be given more because they are wealthy?
I strongly suspect that you might be a conservative voter.
I fear you're still suffering post traumatic election disorder after I crushed you to the TOTYship in a landslide victory of one vote.
We elect people to high office to govern us, to shape our laws and represent our interests in the Mother of all Parliaments (tm)... We expect superior moral standards (that we would not hold ourselves to), absolute financial probity, and squeaky clean lifestyles.
Isn't it a bit surprising then that we value the role at such a low level compared to other "senior" roles?
#leavethemlaughing
http://www.nottinghampost.com/Conservative-MP-Anna-Soubry-fiercely-denies/story-26080390-detail/story.html
Did she retract the word sanctimonious?
Maybe we should do this: if being an MP is your only job, you get paid; if it isn't, you don't.
[whack!]
Trouble is, too many people see the job of being an MP as being full-time, i.e. 24x7..
Free time? Shurley shome mishtake...
But I still value the job of being an MP higher than it currently is.
Most recent Register of Interests (PDF)
Most recent Register of Interests (PDF)
As long as MPs are available to meet all their voting and committee obligations, that should be our primary concern. MPs sloping off to have a meeting as a no-exec director for their #25k a year, instead of ironing the wrinkles out of a piece of complex tax legislation, that is clearly wrong. But if they go for meetings that means they catch a later train back to their constituency - is that so bad? In my book no, if we get a better all-round MP from it.
And whether an MP has enough surgeries for constituents is for their voters decide - if no, they will get booted out.
Obviously UKIp aren't big in Islington so I would've been a paper candidate but going through the motions is a bit crap when you know you cant win and if everyone was going to be calling me Hitler and making smart arse lefty remarks I was big odds on to make a gafferooni!
It's worth noting that in the private sector some very strong brands actually pay less than their peers and people are willing to work for less than they could get elsewhere because of the long-term career value of having worked at firm xyz.
Add in the extras for sitting on committees, the BTL opportunity, the 5-year contract with a guaranteed redundancy payout, the gilt-edged 1/40th final salary pension, the unreceipted cash "food allowance", the unreceipted travel expenses, and the opportunity to spend your office allowance employing your family in jobs you didn't advertise and for which they have not competed, and you're looking probably at a package that £300kpa wouldn't buy you in the private sector.
This is for a job for which no skills are required. Sure, as in all jobs, some skills might be useful, but none are required in the strict sense, i.e. that you can't stand without having them; see Emily Wedgwood-Benn, who stood aged 18 last time.
Passing over the nepotism issue there, it is clear that Labour would not have stood a patently unqualified candidate. So it's clearly the case that an 18 year old who's just left school is adequately qualified - which rather knackers MPs' frequent claim that they're not paid what they're worth. The job content is somewhere between paralegal and junior social worker, and the market value of an MP may be minimum wage.
Personally I'd rather MPs were paid say 150% of their earnings over the 2 prior years. Emily Benn would then have received about £13.50 an hour, while Nick Palmer would have earned £135,000, so that we pay for the experience they bring. Expenses, of course, would be met based on receipts.
Labour took in Stella Creasy and Chuka Umunna (I'm not so up with Labour MPs), again, quality people.
I doubt, percentage-wise, there is much dross in parliament, though I might be wrong.
I suspect if I tried to become an MP for a top party I wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance. Just not good enough.
ps - have you ever read Alan Clark's books? On becoming a minister he describes the mind-bending workload, portentously questioning whether it would lead him to a brain tumour. It's very off-putting for anybody who fancies entering parliament. For £60k too?! Screw that.