There is an article in yesterday's Observer which infuriated me. The subject is the number of MPs who are leaving parliament at the next election and it gives the reason for the mass exodus as the expenses scandal.
What angered me was the attitude of some of the MPs quoted. Here are a few of the moans:
'The 65-year-old, who has decided to stand down at the next election because of his age, says that it is hardest for wives and husbands, who have seen their partners fall in the public's esteem.'
'Paul Goodman, the Conservative MP for Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, says summer is a normally a chance for MPs to "recharge their batteries" and their enthusiasm for Commons life. This year, the holiday could do the reverse. The atmosphere out there, he says, is "cooler than they [fellow MPs] expected".'
'Privately, MPs report that at social gatherings – the garden parties, fetes, and formal functions that make up much of an MP's summer – people shy away, where once they used to gather round. "I find some of my constituents can't look me in the eye," said one. "So part of me thinks why the hell should I take this any longer, for £64,000 a year."'
It's right that the MPs who didn't abuse the expenses system should feel angry at being tarred with the same brush as those who did, but you would think they were grown up enough to deal with it.
Paul Goodman and his 'recharge their batteries' comment is insulting to our troops who work 7 days a week for weeks on end without complaint. The anonymous MP who feels that £64,000 is not enough for him to handle upset constituents says far more about him than it does about his constituents.
The article claims that MPs know they have lived for too long off a system that paid them too small a salary and too much in expenses. Too small a salary? I think not. The taxpayer also pays for all their office expenses, travel and subsidises their high class Westminster restaurants, tea rooms and bars. What other job offers such to employees who don't even need any formal qualifications?
The Scottish Parliament MSPs are more or less content with the scrutiny of their expenses so why are MPs so different?
Some are predicting that, by October, more than 200 MPs will have decided to step down and are leaving their seats open to inexperienced 'professional' politicians. Politics has been a 'profession' for a number of years now, Isn't it time MPs were paid in the same way as all public servants and had a salary scale according to years of experience?
Here's a quote from one labour MP whose priorities differ from what people expect of their political representative:
"I'm off. You can't earn a decent living here any more. We are going to have the most inexperienced parliament ever after the election, with big decisions to take. It is not somewhere I want to be. I want to earn some money."
I wonder if the above anonymous person would class themselves as an experienced 'professional' politician. There will be few tears from the public at the departure of the aggrieved. Once they discover the realities of working outside the Westminster bubble they may realise just how fortunate they were being the Right Honorable Member for Yonder.
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13 comments:
Morning Madame,
I couldn't agree more, they are JUST public servants no more no less. Perhaps they feel that as they are Hon Members they think their pooh doesn't smell.
The Westmidden Parliament is a throw back from years of being ruled by the ruling class and twits who married "Debs". It's only post WWII that the intelligentsia had a shot at serving as an MP.
The sooner the 200 corrupt feckers resign the better, they are not entitled to it by birth nor are those populating the House of Lords.
It all needs modernising and to be a fairer system. However, there are too many senior civil servants running the UK to their entire satisfaction......need I say more?
Finally, the Scottish Parliament is a refreshing change, showing the old that the new work for their bawbees and don't think they're entitled to vast pockets of cash!
I've worked 24 years for my level of dosh, they should work on a sliding scale too.
Morning Sir
Most of them should be paying us, the public, for the honour or serving us. It's all about money isn't it, just how much they can milk us for.
They should send them to Helmand for a month. That would sort out the men from the boys and perhaps then they wouldn't be so fast at committing our troops to fighting.
I see that one of them is worried about a parliament of inexperienced MPs.... Well, as they are told how to vote, I can't see that it matters very much whether they have experience or not. Actually a class of 6 year olds could do that much cheaper than the current bunch.
Vast and far reaching changes must come about. They have to start with reforming the way of voting so that the job is no longer a job for life; they need to stop working in a Royal Palace, freed from the laws that confine the rest of us; there needs to be far fewer of them, and as you suggest SR they need to be paid on performance, ability and experience, like the rest of us.
Until MPs are treated like ordinary human beings, they will find it very difficult to make laws for ordinary human beings.
The seminal notion of 'democracy' was one where the state's great educated and confirmed philosophers made well-thought through decisions on behalf of the 'good' of their populace which were put into practice and audited by an elected assembly (the MPs if you like).
Somehow this has got a trifle screwed up probably due to the exchange of ancient parchment envelopes, freebie chariot trips and too many swan houses.
So we have, or rather had, the modern misconception that the MPs/MEPs are supposed to be our incisive moral thinkers and the civil 'service' behemoth that put things into practice should have no say on policy? We have ended up with two groups - one elected (except in Glenrothes) and the other who probably along with their EU cousins run the show. Some of those that would have been part of the philosophers 'think tank' are now mostly fulminating on the Blogiament or demonised as not being Politically Correct and thus marginalised.
We need good brains, energy and leadership back in government - and anyway someone once said "experience is only a way of remembering your mistakes and not necessarily on how you ought to have avoided them". Some of the best rational, non-baggage and substantial thinking I've heard lately, came from the schools audience and their organised edition of Question Time.
What a common sense post Tris.
Oh Clarinda, you do write so well. :) I did start about the 'old great and good' then realise they were the very elite who initially designed the 'hidden' expenses system so as they wouldn't be out of pocket, or rather they would be in pocket.
We still need a graduating pay scale though. What job, at any age, can anyone received £64,000+ without even a few highers or A levels?
I know that people have lost faith in politicians, but I do also think that they have unreasonable expectations from their elected representatives. It's simply not either fair or feasible for MPs or other elected representatives to be on call 24/7 (and believe me, people do expect that), or to reply to every e-mail within 10 minutes, not realising that their's will be one of hundreds of contacts that their MP's office will have received that day.
Everyone I know who is an MP, and that's a fair number of people across most parties, takes their job extremely seriously. They totally relish the idea that they are there to serve the people and not one single one of them is in it for the money. In fact, most of them took a pay cut in order to do the job.
Most of them got elected after years of incredibly hard work which they gladly pursued for absolutely no reward.
For most MPs I know, their working week starts before dawn on a Monday and if they're lucky, it might finish on a Saturday tea-time.
I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago in which I expressed my anger at the way organisations like 38 Degrees are trying to suggest that MPs are a load of lazy swine enjoying a 10 week holiday. I just thank goodness that the parliamentarians I know have partners who force them to take a couple of weeks off otherwise they just wouldn't.
Most of them are spending their Summer recess door knocking, doing tours in their constituency, working on casework - and they do this every single Summer, pending election or not. That break from Parliament gets them out and about getting the lowdown on real life so that they can learn about and find ways to help with people's problems.
The MPs I know take their jobs very seriously and give well over and above what most people would. A normal working week when Parliament is sitting is 70 hours or so.
I am sure that I could take you to any one of a number of places where you can watch these people at work and see for yourselves that they are value for money.
I understand why people are angry with politicians. The problems are more a result of a failure by all the main parties except, it has to be said, the Lib Dems, who have always argued for reform and transparency, to make Parliament more accessible and more accountable.
I get angry when I see good people unfairly demeaned in the way they have been in the press. The media have reported on expenses claims, often inaccurately, and whipped up such a frenzy that people actually wanted to see dead MPs hanging from lamposts. Now the long hours and the helping people, that's just part of the the job, but the abuse and denigration is hard to take.
Did you read Denis McShane's article alongside the one you are complaining about, suggesting that Parliament is going to be a lot weaker for what has happened, because we are losing some of the most independent, questioning minds who have uncovered all sorts of scandal?
That last Labour pol quote said it all: how could you get any further from the point and meaning of being an MP without actually announcing you intend to turn cannibal and eat your constituents?
"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within"
Pair wee things - underpaid and disrespected when aw thur tryin tae dae is make it a better planet.
Caron -
From what I read some of those alleged "independent minds" were leaving anyway and others are going because of the uselessness of backbench life in being rendered impotent by the current inner government circles, whips, EU mandates and the scourge of political correctness all particularly promoted by this now "twitching corpse" Labour government. At what point did Westminster okay the idea that a twice booted out and non-elected ouzo sipping peer could be delegated to the role of PM?
It must be exhausting attending garden fetes, knocking on doors, printing off automated replies and making sure your researchers and admin staff deal with constituents requirements. Your description of what MPs do on a daily basis is supposed to be what MPs do on a daily basis - they are in charge of their own job descriptions, recess dates, expense setups/rackets, salary agreements and Codes of Conduct etc. - so it's all self-inflicted and precious few tears from me!
Mr McShane, Labour MP, in his Observer diatribe continues to peddle the rubbish about GPs salaries. I fancy dealing with real life or death situations in a medical surgery will be an interesting point of comparison in her constituency surgery for the GP seeking election.
When we, the public, now call our MP employees to heel and account for being either guilty or guilty by association - they have nobody else to blame but themselves. To be able to saunter off into the sunset to spend more time with their families without penalty is an advatage not given to the rest of us mugs if we put even a suspected foot wrong?
There are good MPs - but why no obvious effort on their part to sort this Westminster mess out long before now if they are the majority? That's why the public are rightly sick of the vested interest of party/big business politics rather than what MPs should be doing in the UK's vested interests?
A further brilliant stimulus for Scottish Independence - which will probably do the English a favour in perhaps giving them as good a fresh start as we have had with the start-up momentum of devolution and a more honest and open system of government.
This foul Labour government has done more to destroy some of our once proud and effective public institutions, traditions and professions - now they have pressed their self-destruct button - a dose of their own medicine seems quite bitter....good!
Most of them took a pay cut to be an MP Caron? Somehow I just can't believe out of 646 MPs that most would be capable of earning £64,000 + very handsome expenses outside of the Westminster bubble. If it wasn't such an attractively salaried job why are so many desperate to get to Westminster? Not to serve the public.
Years of incredibly hard work? What about the 24 year old who was recently elected? She doesn't have years of hard work behind her, she's hardly out of school/university.
Caron, I'm weary hearing how hard MPs work. You know I compare them to the military and really there's no comparison is there? The military work, because most MPs voted for them to do so, is hellish conditions 7 days a week for months on end. I'll not go on, you know an MP wouldn't last a week in such situations.
I consider an MP is a go-between, between me and government departments. Nothing more really.
Yes I did read Denis McShane's article and I agree some scandals were exposed but nobody was 'responsble' in most cases.
The Westminster bubble is a boys/girls club and the protect each other. The public can be seen as a slight irritation.
I've been in the place, watched what goes on, watched the posturing and snobbery.
Wonder why they didn't announce that NW? The response would have been interesting.
Much as I hope the English will see the change is in their hands, I doubt if they will vote for it Clarinda. I expect them to vote for the 'safe' candidate, the one who sounds just like the last one.
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