Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

I don't think they were forced to become MPs - that was their decision and they should have been aware of the salary, benefits and possibly the expense fiddles before they applied to the local party selection committee.

Hundreds of miles from home? What about thousands of miles from home, being shot at and trying to evade IEDs, with inadequate/unsuitable equipment - which has been decided upon by the people who have to brave working part-time in London - who decides their pay rises? Surprise, surprise, it is the MPs.

They do deserve a pay rise - when they become competent to govern this country of ours and take the action to bring back sovereignty from Brussels, control immigration, appoint regulators with the authority to control banks, utilities etc. and a judiciary that passes meaningful sentences and no more of the soft touch sentences that we see now.

I wonder if our MP - I cannot call him our "representative" due to his past record, will be in the House tomorrow and will he vote for the referendum?

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

when i chose to be on the YTS i was aware the wages were £28.50 per week

the wage was a complete and utter joke for a weeks work or 4 days work and a day in college doing a work related course in the hope that a didnt get a crook of an employer abusing the system to get cheap labour and would indeed give me a job at teh end of 2 years

my point is i knew it was crap wages and teh risks which if after many years homing thier skills of crookery as local councilors Mps havnt learned how to figure out then its pretty much tehir own fault if they think they are hard done by.

please remember the vast majority of MPs have fine tuned their attributes such as backstabbing,lying,telling half truthes,fraud and decete for many years as local councilors and are more than aware of what is in store for them on the next level

notthat i think any of them are dishonest or owt lol

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

No...you don't think...you KNOW!

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

and I paraphrase: I don't think they were forced to become soldiers, we don't have conscription any more (mores the pity but thats fodder for another thread) - that was their decision and they should have been aware of the salary, benefits and dangers before they applied to their local recruiting office.

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

Which is no different from people who become M.P.s or are those people not bright enough to suss the wage out?:rolleyes:

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

They where & accepted it, you don't see them whining about pay rises, being away from family, how hard they've got to work & the lack of perks. They take their money & do their job with a damn site more integrity than the whiners of Westminster.

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

You are right DinG I don't see them whining or moaning but get real they do indeed bemoan their lot.
They've been moaning since Kiplings time and before.

Brit squaddie rewrites Kipling poem as attack on soldier?s lot today | The Sun |News|Campaigns|Our Boys

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

I dont think the whole issue is the fact of getting a pay increase , its the fact that it is likely to be around £10,000 which is a damn sight more than a lot of ordinary "plebs " earn for their annual salary. This on top of over eighty days a year not actually at the commons, which i am sure the vast majority of mp's spend working in their constituency:rolleyes: Many have second jobs on various boards or advisory committees which earn them extra income.It must be a struggle to survive for the poor lambs :s_cry: i'm just off to get my violin :rolleyes:

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

Afghanistan (with apologies to Kipling)

When you're lying alone in your Afghan bivvy,
And your life, it depends on some MoD civvie,
When the body armour's shared
(one set between three)
And the fire fight's not like it is on TV,
Then you'll look to your oppo, your gun and your God,
As you follow the path all Tommies have trod.

When the Gimpy has jammed and you're down to one round,
And the faith that you've lost is suddenly found,
When the Taliban horde is close to the fort,
And you pray that the arty don't drop a round short,
Stick to your sergeant, like a good squaddie should,
And fight them like Satan or one of his brood.

Your pay - it won't cover your needs or your wants,
So just stand there and take all the Taliban's taunts,
No generals nor civvies can do aught to amend it,
Except make sure you're in a place you can't spend it,
Three fifty an hour in your Afghani cage,
Not nearly as much as the minimum wage.

Your missus at home in a foul married quarter,
With damp on the walls and a roof leaking water,
Your kids miss their mate, their hero, their dad;
They're missing the childhood they should have had
One day it will be different, one day by and by,
As you stand there and watch to see the pigs fly.

Just like your forebears in mud, dust and ditch
You'll march and you'll fight and you'll drink and you'll bitch,
Whether Froggy or Zulu, or Jerry or Boer
The Brits will fight on 'til the battle is over.
You may treat him like dirt, but nowt will unnerve him,
But I wonder sometimes, if the country deserves him.

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

i may be wrong about this but im pretty sure a british soldier pal of mine once told me that if a soldier is serving in lets say Iraq as an example he or she can not vote in elections which if true puts them beneath MPs and prisoners in our prisons( i really do hope tahts incorrect but pretty sure thats what i was told)

just popped in my head that after i saw soldiers knowing what to expect when joining up

if anyone joins the army and finds themselves surprised that they have found themselves in afghanistan or serving american interests then that person is pretty dim and probbably allocated the rank of gun fodder

the days of adverts showing the army to be a place where you go to learn ski-ing or sufing in the crystal blue waters of the medataranian are long gone its a pretty much a given your heading for a nutsack full of sand surrounded by people who wouldnt bat an eyelid at you getting beheaded.

my american buddy lost a leg after his truck went over a IED and america have looked after him extreemly well and given him a healthy pension that has secured his future

in the UK he would have been slung on incapacity,declared a scounger by his government then assesed by ATOS a french company that would say he didnt have a disability

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

It's very tempting to indulge in populist "They're all liars and thieves" mantras. Those who spout this often state the same regardless of the sitting government and it's MP's. Up there with "They're all the same", which blatantly ignores how various governments have treated the North West.

Another chestnut is "People around here/Ordinary people only earn...... or What about (insert job here) who only earn......

Irrelevant cliches which are trotted out at any moment of government disapproval.

A CEO at a company such as BT, Virgin, Sky etc earns much much more than an MP. That's one CEO at a company which, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty inconsequential.

Now....imagine government is a business. This business is responsible for the well being of 60 million plus people including:

Education
Taking us to war.
Keeping the nation safe.
Healthcare
Transport

Shouldn't the people RUNNING OUR COUNTRY be entitled to at least the same as those who run ONE BUSINESS?

Experts in the above fields....the kind of brains we want running the country, have no incentive to on the relative pittance our representatives get in relation to their international counterparts. Why become an MP when you can make much more for much less work in your particular field or business?

Also as has previously been mentioned....the leader of Lancs County Council gets more than an MP. As does our useless new Crime Commissioner.

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

when someone applies to be teh CEO of a company they are doing it for the perks,the huge pay packet and the status

serving teh people is supposed to be a honour not a career to be used to get as much financial gain an dpower as possible

you simply cant compare been a big banker or a CEO with been a MP its two totally differnt types of employment if you will.Well its supposed to be but Mps are just as power hungry and greedy as CEO's

at least CEO's ar ehonest about why they are in teh job they are

we could scrap voting and hold job intervies for CEO of the UK and award a bonus and wage structure

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

Lights, action...run that Alan Sugar clip again................

Re: MPs Pay Rise
 

i dont want to over use it

besides his compuers were crap he dont deserve the publicity :)

i wonder how much labour paid him for them expertees he displayed lol