QUIET REINSTATEMENT OF RESETTLEMENT PAYMENTS FOR MPS

MPs’  “Resettlement payments” were abolished following the expenses scandal, in an effort to placatetaxpayers, angry at those who had been steeling from the public purse.

However, it didn’t take them long to get fingers back into the till and their snouts back into the trough.

The funds have been quietly reintroduced on what is described as an “interim” basis. MPs who are rejected by the public will be able to claim the allowances in the event of a snap election before 2015. A permanent policy on resettlement payments will be introduced next year.

The system entitles politicians to up to six months’ salary to help them “adjust to life” (it’s a foreign land outside the Commons), because poor souls, they, unlike ordinary people, have to be feather bedded when they lose their well-paid jobs.

After the 2010 general election some MPs were entitled to up to 100% of their salary when they were rejected by the voters.

Nick Clegg was a strong critic of the payments at that time. He said that there was “no reason” why an MP who was sacked or decided to stand down should be “rewarded with a big, tax-free, lump sum payment” however, it appears that being in government has altered his view.

Redaction!

Under the system brought in by Osborne, and agreed by Cameron, Clegg and Alexander, MPs will be able to claim a month’s wages for every year they have been in parliament with the maximum being 6 months (about £33,000).

The interim scheme will apply only if there is an election before 2015. The MPs will still be entitled to claim for accommodation costs for up to 2 months, as well as any security and disability assistance they were claiming before they left. They will also be entitled to an increased allowance for winding up offices: £56,250 for MPs in the London area and £53,150 for those elsewhere. (An unfair situation in these days where other areas of the UK have exceptionally high costs.)

They don’t half think a lot of themselves, do they?

When will they get it into their thick heads that they are NOT RULERS, just functionaries working for us, because there isn’t room for us all in the London assembly... and in any case we have better things to do with our time?