Sleaze or Enterprise?
Not an attack on the Conservative party per se, but is this the shape of things to come the Independent reports the latest story to break regarding MP's payments to their spouses and connected persons.
I actually don't have a problem with MP's employing wives, daughters, sons etc providing that they comply with the same HMRC guidelines as the rest of the public, firstly that they are paid the minimum wage and secondly that the payment is return for a position of employment that can stand up to scrutiny. There is absolutely no point whatsoever in any administration of whatever particular hue voting through legislation that prevents the payment of wages to spouses for the purpose of avoiding higher rates of income tax if the politicians making those rules are doing it themselves.
I would have thought that to be an MP's researcher whilst being a full time University student during term time was impossible, there's little point being one during the Uni. summer holiday either as that coincides with the three month summer recess. If however you want to employ your wife, husband, mistress etc fine, providing the salary meets the hours worked - let's not pretend that a researcher can earn £400 an hour, if they can then they are the biggest waste of money since Harry Kewell's agent conned Liverpool out of a million quid in return for 'promoting' his client.
If we are going to have open government that means scrapping all this rubbish about John Lewis lists, second and third homes and excessive salaries. Why can't Parliament sit during the summer and all the MP's be put up in the university halls of residence around London? The rest of us can stay in them once the students have gone home so why not turn them over to the MP's, perhaps a bit of close quarters living might actually turn a few of them into reasonable human beings.
2 comments:
Paul, I'm with you on this: I'm sick of all MP's and MEP's and their bloody expense fiddles. They egt paid mammoth amounts (some even deserve it). Fuck 'em. I would cut all expenses and pay them about 75K flat rate no ifs no buts. Who cares if they live further away...do they want the job? Re halls of residence someone on the MB mentioned this a while ago although they said re a single building a la Travel Lodge purpose built fot MP's (what more do they need?)
That's a red letter day then! The whole secrecy thing got on my nerves as well, as if we don't have a right to know. I thought of the halls of residence a couple of years ago when for some reason I found my way onto a University of London mailing list. Travel Lodge sounds even better.
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