Hard pressed MPs.
We, being a noisy, uncontrollable rabble, vote for MPs to be our voice in the House of Commons. Such is the theory anyway.
We, being a generous lot, pay them £65,738 a year. Plus extra if they need a bath plug, or new loo seat. Plus we pay our BBC licence fee, and the BBC then hand it out to MPs in dollops of say £1,000 a time for the ‘disturbance’ of appearing in tacky programmes like ‘Cash in the Attic’. This is quite apart from the lucrative business of trolling their line in obliging newspapers, or writing books…
We feed them steak and chips at subsidised prices, fill them so full of cheap beer that they punch each others lights out, and then send them back to their subsidised housing in chauffeur driven cars, for fear that they might find out how the rest of us live.
It’s a cushy number. A basic of round about £250 a day for sitting in the House of Commons piping up on our behalf whenever someone else’s MP proposes a new law that might unfairly impact on us. Like the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill 2010-12 which currently threatens to remove the right to free legal advice for some civil law cases.
Were it not for some of those crusty old hereditary Peers in the House of Lords objecting to this proposal, the bill would have sailed through parliament by now.
Had it sailed through parliament by now, there would be nothing else to require those £250 a day + perks MPs from taking an early holiday until May 11th when they will all rush back to take part in the State opening of Parliament.
Watch with interest the ping-ponging of this Bill between the Commons and the Lords and the concessions made to get it passed. Every day it is delayed past next Thursday, 30th April marks an extra day they will have to work for their money over and above the 14 days out of the 75 currently scheduled.
Yes, you did read that correctly. They will only have put in an appearance on 14 days out of the 75 days between the end of March and their Summer hols in July. 2 weeks out of 2 and a half months. Those that bother to turn up, that is.
Now you know why they have the time to appear on ‘Cash in the Attic‘.
Last year Dominic Raab got his knickers in a twist because he was receiving two e-mails a day from constituents via the 38 degrees website. He reported them to the Information Commissioner for publishing his e-mail address. When they pointed out that it was available on the House of Commons website, he forced the House of Commons to remove it from the official site! Raab’s explanation for this was:
Just processing the emails from your website absorbs a disproportionate amount of time and effort, which we may wish to spend on higher priorities, such as helping constituents in real need or other local or Parliamentary business. These emails from your and other lobby groups are becoming a real nuisance.
Just what are we paying them for?
Discuss.
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1
April 20, 2012 at 11:53 -
What makes it worse is that some of them barely even bother to attend, much less represent their constituents.
They still take the pay and perks, though.
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2
April 20, 2012 at 12:10 -
You are back! Had us all worried…
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3
April 20, 2012 at 13:54 -
And why are we paying so many of them? Given that the EU governs all our law now…
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6
April 20, 2012 at 14:15 -
This Cat has discovered a delightful and ingenious alternative:
http://bit.ly/IsUHjd -
7
April 20, 2012 at 15:35 -
These days, most of us “clock in” by swiping some sort of carf to get through the entrance door to work.
Most “professionals” are required to keep a record of time spent on Continuing Professional Development” (keeping your skills up to date).
Many of us now have annual reviews of our perfomance in meeting specific targets st work.
Surely MP’s will have no objections to be treated in a similar manner.
Could I suggest we make a start by having the House of Commons publish the following for all MP’s every year:
Attendance % in Parliament
Voting %
Total hours in constituency surgery
Total hours on constuency “work” – meetings, social functions etc
Total days out of the country on “Parliamentary” business
Perhaps “inset days” would be a good idea as well!We could even have a league table.
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8
April 20, 2012 at 16:27 -
Let’s be careful using the same brush for tarring them all. Buried deep within that generally disreputable bunch of 650, there are some genuinely hard-working, constituent-focused MPs, with the full complement of honesty and integrity.
Rare, I’ll grant you, but please take care not to apply a one-size-fits-all approbation to them all.
I am fortunate in that my local MP is one of that rare breed – it is comforting to have one of those and my sympathies go out to those in less well-favoured constituencies.
There’s a lot of bath-water in Westminster, but let’s not throw out the rare babies too.-
9
April 21, 2012 at 02:03
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10
April 21, 2012 at 08:39 -
Yes, very good to see you are back! Trust all goes well.
MPs and their pay are another good example of the false hope that any bunch of regulators will be sanctified enough to look after the affairs of others.
They clearly make the case that everyone looks after their own bailiwick first, and only after they have done that very good and thorough, the well being everybody else.
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11
April 23, 2012 at 10:32 -
And then there are double/triple/quadruple jobbing MPs from Northern Ireland.
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