Of course it is. Basically MPs used to fiddle a 10% pay uplift on expenses - now they want to 'make that up'. I say bollox - we'd get better MPs if they did it as a public service not a lucrative career choice.
Politics at Westminster | BREAKING: UKIP
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
That is debatable in my opinion. I think it's a catch 22 where the best people for the job would be people who do not even seek the job for any reason - money, power or a career. It's a bit like the police, I'm kind of wary about anyone who says they want to be a part of the police (ones who aren't very vocal about the helping people bit), often they just want a bit of power over everyone else. Ideally people who have shown themselves to be suitable would be selected from relative obscurity, i.e. outside of politics and asked to do the job and I think the same could be said about the police, however a system like this is very impractical and flawed for obvious reasons - ideal to me though.
Is being an MP even that lucrative by itself? Google says £67,000 which is no doubt a highly paid job but I'm not sure I would call it lucrative. Surely the lucrative part comes with the profile during and after their term, which would be present if they did the job for £67,000 or for free.
Well you used to have rich 'one-nation' Tories who thought they ought to do their bit and trade union Labour guys who worked as postmen. Now you get practically interchangeable shits (Blair, Cameron, Clegg) who will, like Tone, use their period in office to make some moolah.
I keep thinking there is a giant void ready to be filled by an 'old' Labour style party and Labour are stupid as fcuk to not be filling it, it's like they're missing the most obvious trick there is. Would you agree? It's like people are seeing that in UKIP and not really realising that they're basically extreme Tories because they're quite good at masquerading as working class heroes too.
I find it very frustrating that Labour is quite happy to not even attempt to differentiate themselves from the Tories, as you say the guys at the top seem interchangeable. If Labour went back to its' roots a bit it'd win by a landslide in my opinion, instead they just look timid and pointless. As good or bad as Miliband is, he himself doesn't seem to represent Labour at all. He represents Labour voters about as much as Cameron does and incredibly even less than Farage has us all convinced.
No chance, I'm afraid.
What's stopping them? (Genuine question)
Agree with that ,but they are so entrenched in the center and scared of what the papers think.
There aren't the votes for it at the moment. They're struggling to make any impact on the South-East (outside London) as it is, and moving back to the left would harm them even further in that respect. The areas where being on the left is most beneficial in vote terms, i.e. in cities and in Scotland, they've been the dominant party already for some time. When you further take into account the public's new-found distrust of the welfare system and the deficit, old Labour would get hammered. My personal wish is for a change in the voting system that allows genuine choice of parties for voters rather than the triangulating behemoths we have currently, where you can actually vote for policies you believe in rather than aligning with a particular coloured logo because it's slightly less bad than the other ones. Current system is bankrupt.
The public are letting a couple of Channel 4 documentaries and the Daily Mail's rhetoric get the better of them regarding welfare. According to this, in financial year 2011-2012 £35bn of tax was evaded/not paid. In 2012 £29.8bn was spent on Child Benefit, Unemployed Benefits & Housing combined out of a total of £694bn total spend. A complete drop in the ocean and a smaller amount than what is actually owed to the government in unpaid taxes. It really is not a hard argument against a couple of extreme isolated cases highlighted and regurgitated in the media.
So many people I meet at work or in general seem to have a bitter hatred toward people on any kind of benefits with little reason at all, with nothing but spiel to back up their position after you ask them why. If Labour truly believe in the welfare system then they could easily sell it to people, as @Drifter says they'd do better to put two fingers up to the papers, isolate a few people of course but restore faith to millions by sounding like they really have ideals and believe in them.
So many people I meet at work or in general seem to have a bitter hatred toward people on any kind of benefits with little reason at all, with nothing but spiel to back up their position after you ask them why. If Labour truly believe in the welfare system then they could easily sell it to people, as @Drifter says they'd do better to put two fingers up to the papers, isolate a few people of course but restore faith to millions by sounding like they really have ideals and believe in them.
Bang on.
A 10% pay-rise for MPs, which is not linked in any way to performance is a fecking disgrace. Even more so when the government says it cannot afford a 1% rise for NHS workers.
It's a £76,000 basic with a hell of a lot of perks.
Wrong, it is £67,000 raising to £74,000 after the General Election.
& a hell of a lot of negatives. No way I would do it.
I also agree with this, they should be doing a lot better than they are really, Cameron's being let off the hook. Labour should be sweeping up Liberal Democrat votes and be ahead by more given that UKIP's rise is largely down to getting support from former Conservatives. The fact that the Heywood & Middleton by-election was won by 600 votes in what was supposedly a 'safe' seat should have Miliband worried.
In a way, the stars have aligned for UKIP- unconvincing leadership from both Labour and Conservatives, defections to UKIP allowing them a shot at getting MPs, Liberal Democrats nowhere because of the coalition, Clegg losing both debates on Europe according to the polls, country still recovering from economic crisis, Farage getting plenty of air time (as seen by my post above about the TV debates).
Sorry, I wasn't sure of the exact figure, was just going off what was said in a previous post. Still, in these austere times, a £7,000 annual pay rise, unlinked to performance, is crass given the pay freezes elsewhere in the public sector. Another example of the political elite being aloof from the man on the street.
The vast majority of MPs have a very cushy life, especially the backbenchers. It's only the morons who do wrong and bring negative attention upon themselves that have a hard time.
Add another £120bn tax not paid by tax 'avoidance'.
Labour are sweeping up lib dem votes, theres been some polling done in labour-lib dem marginals that show labour overcoming 20% deficits from 2010 to now lead there. Theyre also losing out in popular vote terms though to the greens and ukip, whilst people that switched to tory in 2010 havent really gone back.
It just makes the contempt towards people on benefits even sadder and more disappointing. So disproportionate.
Welfare minister apologises for disability pay comments
This is the real Tories and what they think.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29628557
This is the real Tories and what they think.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29628557
Not sure a traditional, back-to-its roots left wing labour party would be electable in this country. It wasnt electable in the 80s or 90s, that is why it reinvented itself as New Labour in the first place.
Maybe things have changed now and people have moved to the left. But I doubt it. The reason the parties all cluster around the centre right is that is where the electorate is.
Maybe things have changed now and people have moved to the left. But I doubt it. The reason the parties all cluster around the centre right is that is where the electorate is.
The thing is, if I wasn't living in the UK I'd like to see how a left wing party would do in Government, but living here, I simply wouldn't trust Labour.
Absolutely appalling thing to say and as someone who works one-to-one with disabled people as a job I see discrimination against them too often. I don't believe he's sincere for a second, sorry he got caught out maybe.
It's what you make of the job of course, but I don't agree at all that it's only those who have done something wrong who ever get a 'hard time'. I'd agree with you that there's a 'cushiness' scale and the average backbencher tends to have the best of it, but the abuse MPs get on an almost daily basis isn't something I would be prepared to tolerate for that money. Admittedly a lot of it is just random trolling or in more sympathetic cases perhaps, those with mental health issues, but that doesn't mean it's an easy job and a lot of the daily grind they do is thankless.
You also have to factor in the fact you basically don't get a weekend for 5 years, especially if you're a Minister. Monday-Thursday you're in Parliament and Friday-Sunday, plus all recess breaks, you're in your constituency.
Unfortunately the minority of lazy/corrupt/self serving MPs, along with the rise in aggressive political commentary, means that the whole profession is tarnished in public eyes. A lot of MPs work very hard for fairly little return though, and that should be acknowledged in my view. For every Brooks Newmark, there's another 600 odd MPs out there dutifully fixing Mrs Blogg's bin collection issues without scandal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29633089
Another one going the hara-kiri route.
"Jeremy Browne MP to stand down at the next election"
Another one going the hara-kiri route.
"Jeremy Browne MP to stand down at the next election"
I actually think Lord Freud has a point but expressed it appallingly.
Disabled unemployment is around 50% if it was possible for those that can't get jobs at all to do some work they can and get paid a portion of a normal salary which was then topped up by the benefits system I'm not really sure how thats a bad thing. Obviously, its a tight rope between finding dignified jobs that would improve disabled self esteem and not forcing people into unsuitable, horrific jobs just to tick quotas which would inevitably be the slippery slope bureaucracy would force the idea down.
Disabled unemployment is around 50% if it was possible for those that can't get jobs at all to do some work they can and get paid a portion of a normal salary which was then topped up by the benefits system I'm not really sure how thats a bad thing. Obviously, its a tight rope between finding dignified jobs that would improve disabled self esteem and not forcing people into unsuitable, horrific jobs just to tick quotas which would inevitably be the slippery slope bureaucracy would force the idea down.
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Freud as the usual Tory point, drive down wages to get people to work for feck all.
Web Trolls To Face Two-Year Jail Terms
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/web-trolls-to-face-two-year-jail-terms/ar-BB9Vzfo
Yeah .Good luck with that. Hope they have enough prisons.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/web-trolls-to-face-two-year-jail-terms/ar-BB9Vzfo
Yeah .Good luck with that. Hope they have enough prisons.
Perhaps the voting electorate. The majority of the public support e.g renationalising the railways and energy companies, mansion tax, 50% tax bracket, etc. I'd blame the system and the media, not the electorate.
I remember when British rail and the utility companies were nationalised and I suspect a lot of people who do remember that would not want to go back to how bad things used to be.
Doesn't mean with the right management it can't work.
Nationalisation of the railways was a fork up, the track maintenance arm compromised passenger safety and then went bankrupt. SNCF and Deutsche Bahn run the trains pocketing large subsidies while charging ridiculous prices that they couldn't get away with in their own country (eg friend of mine is going Paris-Lyon tomorrow for about 50 euros return, while the fare for my day trip to Newcastle on Saturday is £126 return. Not to mention Paris-Lyon is an hour quicker for about same mileage.
Indeed. I worked for an MP many moons ago. Being an MP is like being a vicar. Its not something you do, its something you are. You're never off the clock, you dont get to finish at 5, its a full time vocation. He did a full weeks worth of work between Monday and Thursday in London, then worked Friday and Saturday mornings in the office in the constituency and he'd then Friday and Saturday afternoons doing visits in the constituency. More often than not he also did functions in the evening.
In fairness he was pretty paid well and much of his work was cool. The real problem is that he didn't have to do it, in some rural constituencies you could get away with doing eff all.
Sadly, I don't think this is true. We're more socially liberal than we've ever been (probably) but politically we're still a nation of Daily Mail readers. There's still a whole voting generation ahead of the one you're talking about.
I agree though that the Left's failure to mobilise in any meaningful way is losing a lot of casual/non-voters.
Just think about this for a second. It's amazing. A middle aged white man has released an officially endorsed UKIP song, in Calyspo style, with a mock Caribbean accent, and claimed he cant see the offence in it.
Real life has fiction over a barrel, and is mercilessly fecking every last ounce of satire out of it.
Real life has fiction over a barrel, and is mercilessly fecking every last ounce of satire out of it.
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Written by a former Conservative, and stalwart friend of Jimmy Savile. Well that's going straight on top of my Xmas wishlist...by which I mean bonfire.
If someone on the The Thick Of It had written that (the idea, not the song...though obviously also the song) they would've been laughed out of the writers room for taking it too far.
At least it's not by Sting, chiefo.