Be Excellent To Each Other

I find the incompetence of government administration charming for the most part, though. Otherwise we wouldn't get stuff like this turning up.

Well, to be fair, if I was earning £141,000 a year (or £7,500 a month, after tax) I think I could just about afford the mortgage on two homes.

If I got a high-flying job in London I wouldn't expect my employer to pay for a home for me there while I kept my home here in Shrewsbury.

Because it's not their money they're spending.

When your line of work involves spending other people's money on things not for yourself, you just don't give a shit.

Because, as Nick Robinson pointed out this morning, it's designed for them to take the piss. Parliament was very reticent about voting themselves much higher salaries and so this "allowances" system (note "allowances", not "expenses") was introduced as a way of getting more money without upping salaries. The parliamentary officials used to call up MPs who were under-claiming and ask them if there was anything else they wanted. It was expected that you'd make use of the full allowance.

Shin for Home Secretary!

I still think they should build an MPs' dormitory by Portcullis House and make them use that - scrap the second home allowance entirely. Live in your constituency, bunk down in London for the three sodding nights a week most of them make it for.

I think they should camp in Parliament Sq. Mandelson would be up for some of that.

FTFY.

Minimum wage for the first 12 months - just to weed out the ones who aren't in it for the right reasons, then the national average wage. Minimum wage should be fine for any MP - with these expense accounts they are able to put normal everyday things like internet connection on them, and the amount an MP can spend on a kitchen in a second home is almost my annual disposable income.

Failing that give all MPs the same plain white basic new kitchens every council fits for their tenants, on the state, and let that be the end of the matter.

She technically as a job "there" too.



But not more than 3 of them because that would be an illegal gathering.

except isn't the national average wage really high because of people that get paid a shed-load of cash?

Inevitable-FeEx.

No, because a lot more people get paid very little (and/or live in the North).

Well, no they don't, because there's a minimum wage, but no maximum one.

Oh no they can't.

http://www.tntjobs.co.uk/news/51-act-against-expense-claim-fraud.aspx

@Grim...

Well, in 2005 [the national average wage] was believed to be just over 22k.

Which isn't very high, IMO.

Heh - wow. Also, it appears that if you do fraudulently claim on expenses, the ginger girls aloud zombie witch will eat you.

Good grief, yes - the horror! If I ever had any to claim, I'd think twice about even submitting the form if she was lurking.

i keep reading the subtitle to this thread as Evil-Vile-Vaudeville. Which I suppose is about right.

I do agree with that. We want MPs paid in some fashion, if only to make sure we get MPs from non-priviledged backgrounds representing us, and we definitely need more representatives in the House of Commons who aren't Eton-educated toffs. But at the same time they shouldn't be paid extravagantly. (I don't think the Labour party's roots in "a worker's MP on a worker's wage" are idealistic or unworkable, but basic sound principles, ones that'd actually play well with the electorate.)

Look, I thought we'd fucking decided this - Grim... owns it, so he's in charge. Full stop.

Well can he fucking IP ban Jacqui Smith then?

NSFW stuff is a mod issue. FFS.

Has Kalmar banged his head?

What, like Prince?

The trouble with making politicians live on a low wage, though I'm all in favour of reducing it (60 grand is fucking absurd), is that they'd then be easier to sway with bribes. Given that they're already almost to a man incredibly swayable, corrupt pieces of shit, that's not something we should be encouraging.

I've got no problem with actually increasing their wages as long as they cut back on all these expenses. You should give people an allowence if they live outside of London and on top of that just pay the expenses you'd usually get in any line of business. You should not be able to furnish an entire second home using it.

It's all very well saying pay them less, but the reality is that you do want the top people. And for every bastard on the take there is also a hard working MP who's worth far more than a mere 60 grand. There was an MP from Reading on the radio a few months back and he outlined his daily schedule and I really had pity for his poor family.

There's also the issue of "second jobs" which I'm rather on the fence about. On the one hand it's a bad idea because it might lead to conflicts of interest and not enough attention on being an MP, on the other hand it might actually mean that the individual MP might be more in touch with what is going on in the real world.

If they're so overworked, why don't we just have two MPs for every constituency? That'd decrease their workload and ease unemployment.

Man, I'm a genius. Vote for me, please. I'll kill you all.


Edit Oh, er, I mean, "OR I'll kill you all. Or."

You actually need less MP's but more assistants. Perhaps each MP (of an enlarged area) should have a running mate?

But that'd never happen as turkeys would never vote for Christmas.

I think you're describing - sort of, sort of, nearly - elections under single transferable vote. Which I kind of approve of - but, unfortunately, neither of the big two parties would support that for obvious reasons, mostly that it eliminates 'safe seats'. It's all stitched-up to serve producers' interests.

I suppose you've got a point in your previous post, BTW.

Was just scanning Popbitch (where they know their pron).

They say the film titles were 'By Special Request' and 'Raw Meat 3'. Now what one poster pointed out was fascinating and the media hasn't picked up on them:




As usual, take with a pinch of salt. Personally I'm not willing to waste time researching what those movies are, but I'm sure someone on here is.

All that said, is such material avaliable on cable? Is this more spin? Would it show up on the bill or just list as 18 rated content? Does nobody know the truth anymore?

Gah! Shoot the lot of them!

I'm in the situation of hating politicans generally and liking our MP immensely. Because he works hard for the constiuency and votes the way I want him to 99% of the time.

Only because you bung him 10 grand a pop and have a photo of him buggering a sheep.

Which, while we're talking about Popbitch, reminds me of the story of the Tory cabinent minister found having sex with the teenage son of an artisto which was hushed up by Maggie. Sadly the late Rev Goatboy took the identities of all concerned to the grave.

Aye, my MP back in hillingdon was a fucking champion. Proper Old Labour, he gave me a right moral crisis by still being in the shitty labour party, but standing for the direct opposite of most of the Cabinet's principles.

I know the idea of "moral crisis", being a member of the party still.

There's more left-leaning people in the party than you'd think. Actually, most of them are, if you mean the party organisation root to tip - it's just the small numbers of evil bastards who wield the most power (who've de-democratised the party since 1994) happen to be the right-wing ones. Which is fucking terrible, but all people like I can do is hold on and do what we can at grassroots, and hope for a decent future.

SPIN.

Looking at how the constituencies are spread across the land, find out where the most central point to the lot is, and move parliament there. Or, have London, Nottingham and Newcastle Parliament buildings and proportionally allocate each one to the appropriate number of days use in each parlaimentary term, because I believe that nothing from London can ever truly be said to be heard across the land. The further you get, the less respect there is, and that's a problem with Britain today. Would Cardiff or Endinburgh have their Fisher-Price parliaments if the London one was a tourer instead? Would they bollocks.

So have a few spaced sites, rotate like they did the England games when Wembley was being rebuilt (to amazing effect, all agreed) and be done wiht it - then no MP needs a second home - you just get a block of flats for them and do it up to council standard - they're on loads of money and they've got a cheap second place then - they can afford their own plasma tellies, ipods and cock-grot.

The only reason Parliament is where it is, is the need back in the day for communication between church, state and monarchy. The people scarcely had a chance to get involved. Now we don't need to be round the corner from Her Majesty, she's only there once a year and she's got email these days if needs be. If the BBC can move their major dramas to Wales, Parliament can and should get on its' bike. Because fewer people give a shit about what happens in Parliament rght now that Eastenders or Casualty, and that wants changing.

Government Yard for PM.

Also, I notice some people talking about how they actually like their MPs. Guess who my MP is? I live in Redditch.

I actually have a tiny (very tiny) bit of guilt about that. Something should have been done!

Sweet.



If one were to know the time of the transaction, it could be worked out as to what was broadcast at that point. I guess.



And London is a financial center. I'm quite happy where it is, for traditions sake. And if the Assemblies keep the Welsh and the Scots happy with their stuff, then, good, if they take out too much rope, we can always dissolve them.

There is something to be said for moving power from the capital, if only because it means that the people in power will actually see what the rest of the country is like. It's an inherent flaw in centralisation - you can't expect people who live in an enorous city to legislate suitably for every farming county or fishing village or old textile town. Especially when it comes to environmental issues. I forget who said it, but there was a good piece about politicians in Brussels being expected to make sensible decisions over natural parks and so on while spending weeks on end in a grey little city. A simple hour of relaxing in said park would show them its value more than twenty hours of reading and debate in an office or parliament, but hey ho.

If you do fraudulently claim on expenses, try not fraudulently claiming on expenses.

_{Is that right?}

Yeah, but we've got rafts of select committees, advisors and all sorts of things like that to do the research into the impacts of policies. Moving it to, say, Shottingham won't change that. besides, the non executive directors in the Commons need to be near their companies.

Besides, London does make sense as the more we hide The North from the world's eyes, the better. Jesus isn't going to land Marine one in The Bullring and consider coming back to the UK, now is he?

I'm not sure any of the "exposed" things are either fraudulent or against the rules, are they? It's just that the rules on allowances they've made for themselves allow them to do a lot of stuff that really we'd rather they didn't. The money grubbing bastards.

One of the reasons the Tories are quite happy for this to get changed, of course, is that they're all rich buggers anyway.

Won't they just tend to see the inside of a building in another city though?

The Scottish Parliament did that as well, split a load of departments off to Inverness. As far as I can tell it has no benefit (other than inflating house prices in some parts of Inverness) and only causes a waste of energy moving people about needlessly.

Possibly, and the movie thing is clearly a mistake.. but it reveals a culture where all and every expense of daily living is routinely charged to the state.

Sorry, but at some point, that's what your massive wages are for.

And it's Jacqui Smith so putting the boot in a bit is clearly allowable.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, these are "allowances", not "expenses" - a crucial difference from their point of view. They were introduced to up their income without having to vote for payrises for themselves, with all the attendant bad publicity that would go with it. Instead they introduced these allowances, which covered as many different things as possible so that they would all be able to take advantage of the full allowance. They really did get parliamentary officials calling them up and asking them if they didn't want to claim for some other things to take them up to the allowance limit. It's an entitlement.

What does need to happen is either (a) scrapping the allowance and upping their salaries a bit (which the media/public is not going to like) or (b) say that for being in Westminster they can claim only for the price of a hotel room at the Novotel round the corner in Lambeth.



Well, true.

I *do* hope it was gay porn her husband was watching. With her researcher. Oooooh, this could get good.

A large chunk of the European Parliament's budget is spent transporting it all down to Stransbourg once a month to keep the French happy.

Me? I'd rather Parliament actually did its job scrutinising the executive and debating legislation in full (you present a long bill, you will have to argue every single dot and comma). But then I also want to fire surface to air missiles at overhead flocks of pigs.

Can we change the subtitle from 'evil' to 'thick'? Being evil suggests some degree of intelligence: beloved Jacqui is just way out of her depth.