In which, whisper it, I confess to feeling sorry for MPs

ndm

One solution might be to give each MP the same allowance for office expenses which they could pretty much spend as they wish.

I believe US Senators have an office allowance of $1.8M - presumably much higher than would be needed by any MP. It is not unknown though for Representatives and Senators to have pretty dingy shared accomodations in DC. The Secret Service apparently ordered Candidate Obama to move out of his student-style digs only after it was damaged in a fire. His apartment was so bad that Michelle Obama refused to stay there and Obama had to book a hotel room when she was in town.

I once heard a pretty senior official in an insurance company complaining about all the nickel and diming that went on when it came to expenses of politicians and bureaucrats. He thought it was, on the whole, a complete waste of time.

Anthony

Excellent post. I agree with pretty much all of it.

Unfortunately, if my experience is anything to go by, this is very much a minority stance. Virtually everyone I know - of all political persuasions - just wants to see the politicians squeezed until the pips squeak. I mentioned a few days back to someone that I thought Frank Field had been given it a bit rough compared to some of the other people who had got away with doing far worse. To which my companion at the time replied, "Look, to be honest, I'm not interested. I don't want to hear it. They've all been on the bandwagon and now they can pay up." Similarly, when I made the argument that allowing MPs to employ their wives went a long way in many cases to keeping the marriages together in the face of the MP being hither and yon routinely as part of his job, the feeling seemed to be that if they didn't want crappy, barren marriages they shouldn't become MPs. My experience is that this is pretty much the public mood in microcosm.

In a way it's understantable. On the other hand, it's also extremely annoying. People constantly complain about the low quality of MPs, but by and large they also seem to want them to earn less than a deputy head at a large urban comprehensive and approach the issue of the unusual demands of the job in terms of lifestyle and additional expenses by going "If you don't like it, don't become an MP". This is not a prospectus for luring the best and the brightest onto the green benches.

Rhoda Klapp

If your MP is no more than lobby fodder and an untrained social worker, and furthermore there are plenty of volunteers to be candidates, then why do they deserve more than somebody who does a proper job? When I last posted here a similar rant, I was answered by no less a person than Diane Abbott. I asked whether she had read the Lisbon treaty before voting for it. No reply.

Oh, they should be allowed to employ their wives, with apropriate safeguards agaisnt fiddles. They really should not be employing their whole family when the kids are students getting a full-time wage for no discernible work. I am not sorry for MPs.

Naomi Muse

Sadly, the good MPs are tarred with the same brush as those who, when encouraged by the fees office, applied for and took more than was the spirit of the rules, and profited by using taxpayers money.

There's no way round the issue of 'cleaning up the system' without payback.

It would be blinkered to ignore the fact that this will put a lot of MPs and their families in a very difficult position both practically and legally.

The financial revamp that some of them and their families will have to undertake will have potentially great pain attached to it.

The practicalities are slightly different, in that many of us commute to London from as far away as Leicester and Coventry, on a daily basis and only stay overnight in London when a very late meeting determines.

Apart from a major apology needed to Elisabeth Filkin, who was trying to prevent all of this from happening, there will be a cultural shift both in the way decisions are made -ad hoc discussions in the bar late at night will only be for London based MPs and therefore the unintended consequence of this may be to create an elite of London based MPs who become the source of power around the cabinet of whichever government it is.

It is a great shame that the government of the country has been sidestepped by these shenanagans. At a time when all hands and hearts and minds should be as to the common good, MPs are preoccupied with themselves and their ratings in polls.

A swift end to it all is the only way.

ndm

When I last posted here a similar rant, I was answered by no less a person than Diane Abbott. I asked whether she had read the Lisbon treaty before voting for it. No reply.

The idea that legislators actually read the text of bills is utterly ludicrous. Bills are drafted with a specific intent and that is to provide clarity to lawyers and those who must implement them. It is far more important for MPs to understand the legislative intent of bills than it is for them to have even seen the text - much of which remains inpenetrable. Any MP who actually reads the full text of bills should be kicked out of the house for time wasting.

I very much doubt whether all these tea baggers, from where this idea of "read the bills" presumably comes from, have ever seen the text of any bill let alone read the full text of any of the healthcare bills they complain about. All they really care about is legislative intent - "read the bill" is just a slogan (in the gaelic sense).

Rhoda Klapp

ndm, when the treaty involves what some say is the end of the sovereignty of the UK, when some say it is merely a tidying up of previous treaties, when the promised referendum has been denied the people because the treaty is not a constitution, don't you think it behoves the MP, the only class of person who will get a say, to read the bloody thing. Your case is non-existent. YES, legislative bodies should read the bills. Here, in the US, everywhere. Every last bit of the bill. Every time. Oh. and vote against the whip if they don't find the contents of the bill in accordance with their principles.
And your case amount to no more than 'I can't be bothered'. Usually you have a point of view I can respect even if I disagree with it. Not this time.

If Ms. Abbot saw my question, and did not answer because the answer may have been embarrassing, that's one thing. At least she was embarrassed. Not to read bills as a matter of course, when it is your job to vote on them, makes your MP even less than the lobby fodder I thought they were.