SHOULD MPS BE GIVEN A PAY RISE NOW?

I’m at something of a loss to understand the plaintive cry of David Cameron that he cannot do anything about the pay rise proposed for MPs.

The sovereign government of the UK can do something about most things that happens in the union, simply by legislating for or against it. Why not so on this issue.

If Danny Alexander and Gideon Osborne can decree that public sector workers may only receive a 1% rise in salaries, never mind that they work for as diverse organisations as Birmingham City Council and The Highlands Health Board, then it beats the hell out of me that all they can do about MPs getting an award of 11% is to beat their breast and wail uncontrollably.

But moving on… should they be getting a pay rise?

There are those who would say that good MPs are worth more that the £66.5 k that they currently receive. Some of them, highly qualified people, quite rightly point out that they could earn ten times that in industry (or fifty times in banking).  

But that’s not a valid argument. After all, there are many who aren’t worth anything like three times the average national wage. But it the job which dictates the salary, not the person. In short you get paid the rate for the job you do, not the job you think you might be able to do.

The job has a flat rate salary; unlike many other jobs it demands no qualifications, and it has no salary scale; you start at £66,500 and you will finish up there, unless you get to be a committee chairman or a minister.

It seems that the job consists of 3 or 4 parts.

MPs are first and foremost constituency members, there to help out and advise their constituents with their travails. But it is a sort of Citizen’s Advice Bureau/social work/facilitator kind of job, often the last resort when officialdom just won’t listen. MPs’ letters go straight to the decision makers, not to junior clerks that deal with mail from the public! In truth much of this work is often done by their administrative staff.

 

Busy, right?

MPs also take part in debates in the chamber, although a look at the chamber for anything other than showpiece debates, suggests that is not a full time job. And because of pairing they can travel the world with never a care for turning up for votes, witness Anas Sarwar undertaking speaking engagements in Pakistan while important votes were taking place at home, and Gordon Brown virtually never showing up at all.

Of course some MPs take part in committee work where they hold ministers or officials to account often to hilarious effect. Sometimes they seem to hold other members of the committee to account; ask Eilidh Whiteford!

 

Princess Alexandra opens something,
but it could easily be the local MP

And finally, they get invited to places to play the role of minor royalty, opening community centres and hospital wings and the like and saying a few words.

Some MPs have time to take on a variety of other jobs, from those who sit on a number of boards of directors to some who work part time as dentists, barristers, public speakers, quiz show panellists, etc. There are even the ridiculous ones who take themselves off for extended periods to eat spiders or wear cat suits in reality tv.

So the questions are: is £66,500 around right for the job, or should it be more? Would we get a better standard of MP if we offered more money? If they should get more, is now, when everyone else is restricted to tiny pay rises or none at all, the right time for an increase?

And given that by law the MSPs and AMs in London, Cardiff and Belfast are paid a proportion of Westminster’s members’ salary, should the First Ministers or Mayor try to do something to stop that happening.

What do you think? There is a poll on the right side bar. It was supposed to have an option, 'YES, but not at the moment', which disappeared into the half-world that is Blogger. Apologies. That's why there is a multiple answer option.

 

York MP Hugh Bayley makes a donation

Finally, I note that the BBC was having difficulty finding an MP who was in favour of the pay rise to appear on the radio this morning. I wonder if anyone has put his head above the parapet.

I hope that those MPs who have been vociferous in decrying the rise will be giving the extra money to charity. Maybe the local food bank would be a good place to start.

WEE DUGS TALK SENSE

A Newsnet Scotland production.

SNAPS ON SATURDAY

Just keep coming for your holidays

Pool what resources...Oh yeah, ours!

Last week it was China, now some tiresome people want to remind
me of my past. It wasn't my fault. I was frightened of the ogre.

...and get less money to do it with

And IDS took a year off because his wife was sick.

I wonder what the very bottom price for a Lordship is

Lions led by donkeys ... remind you of anything?

But Alistair did manage to do a lot of flipping...
John never managed that!

Nope, no limit

And after a week when top Tories were briefing against him,
apparently they are now complaining
that Yes Scotland is criticising him. Awwww.

I'd rather have the best of one world...

I wonder what she's saying...
Ehhh it's your turn tae waash the stairs this week.
I done it last week.

Trust the Tories? Aye right.

He seems proud of it. They tell me he was once a socialist.

And still James Kelly brought up the government's record in parliament.
You do wonder sometimes if he's quite the full shilling

Oh there's standing room in the bunker, is there?

WHAT GOES THROUGH THEIR LITTLE MINDS?

I’m not entirely sure how low they can go, but this has got to be quite close to the bottom.

According to The Scotsman, someone appears to have come up with a scheme using the face of David Cameron, to encourage Scots to have an affair, instead of seeking a divorce. The ad appears to be for Victoria Milan.co.uk an organisation specialising in arranging meetings between people who are already married or partnered.

Now I’m assuming that no one has mixed up the dates and this isn’t destined for April 1. And if it is a giant hoax and Munguin’s Republic has been sucked in, I apologise in advance for making a fool of myself in front of you. 

But, if this is not a spook, someone somewhere appears to think that it is a cool idea to use a website which encourages extra marital sexual encounters, to persuade wavering Scots that it is not a good idea to apply for a divorce.

Now, apart from the rather dubious taste involved, and the questionable value for money of promoting infidelity, given that the people you are trying to convert are often middle aged, conservative (possibly with lower and upper case Cs) people who just want things to stay the same forever… my main question is …HOW IS THIS GOING TO WORK?

I mean what are they proposing? A one night stand with Iceland? A dirty weekend with the Faroes? A full blown crazed passion with Botswana?  How do we do this, and who provides the condoms?

And given that an affair so often leads to the breakup of the marriage, but with a lot of hurt that might not necessarily have been there without the extra marital nookie (remember Charles and Di and Camilla), on what level is this whole thing sensible?

To add insult to injury whoever came up with this hair brained scheme, using the pictures of both the prime and first ministers seem to have spelled a word in the first line incorrectly, unintentionally giving the opposite meaning to the phrase.

Relieve should surely read relive…

The words, "barrel", "bottom" and "scraping" spring readily to mind.

**********

RIP NELSON MANDELA

WAKE UP, SCOTLAND

A blitzkrieg, says Alan Bissett.

In last two days, Tories have raised the retirement age to 70 (don't expect Labour to reverse it).

The unelected House of Lords have stripped the Scottish Parliament of control over renewable energy (a sign of more to come)

And Central Scotland is being opened up by UK Govt for gas fracking without consulting the people who live here.

WAKE UP, SCOTLAND, AND END THIS!

**********

This fine figure of a man, the demoted Mr Lansley, has just charged you and me for overnight stays in an hotel in London when his home is only 1 mile from parliament.

Now, I cast no aspersions, but, when MSPs from Dundee have to get home 70 or so miles every night from Edinburgh, I'm wondering what it is that keeps him, a man clearly in the peak of physical condition, from managing the one mile or so from work to his house, in the town with the best provision of transport in the whole of England. 

It's most mysterious.

I wonder what his second wife, Sally, thinks about it...

***********

***********

WILL DARLING BE PUNTED?

Your country needs you, Gordon.

I like a good laugh.

So I was delighted to read the Daily Mail story about poor old Alistair Darling.

Apparently senior Tories think he is totally useless. They reckon he’s a bad communicator who is comatose most of the time. And they consider that his ineffectiveness may lose them the referendum and all that lovely oil money they were hoping would shore them up when they left the EU and went to war with…well, whichever country that has people with brown skin, who are largely Muslim and which has oil that America tells them to go to war with.

 

Govey, the house elf

Some of them feel…wait for it… that Michael Gove (no, honestly Michael Gove, that little creature who resembles a pretty inefficient house elf) should have headed up the campaign.

Oh Lordy. Laugh, I was sure my sides were going to split.

What a pair 

Perhaps on Planet Tory he’s what passes for a communicator, but for most of the rest of us he’s a slightly comical, unfortunate looking, little fellow with funny glasses and a level of self confidence that well outmatches anything to which he is entitled.

Allegedly there are those imagine that Jeremy Hunt would be better at the job.

Jeremy Hunt?

For pity’s sake!

 

Scary, really scary

Words fail me. This man would have been dangerously over promoted had he been in charge of opening the Downing Street gates for self opinionated bicycling nobs. That he was promoted by his friend, Eton Dave, to be in charge of the ENHS must have put the fear of god into Englishmen and women from Devon to Northumberland.

However even the Tories, not the most perceptive bunch of people on the planet, realise that propelling one of their number over the border to lecture us on a pretty much full time basis, would be suicidal. Even the staunchest of unionists (not counting the 47 people who vote Tory in Scotland) would immediately change sides.

So they have come up with another cunning plan. And here he is.

 

Nothing comatose about this one then

Mr Dynamite himself.

They think, quite rightly I imagine, that Gordon is more popular north of the Border. That of course doesn’t mean that he’s popular.  It’s just that you don’t get any more UNpopular than he is in England. 

And given that they see poor communication skills as one of Alistair's main failings... I'm not sure that I see where Gordo is going to be a vast improvement.

But, given that they never see the fellow in Westminster, where he works (allegedly), they reckon he might as well be up there in Oilland, I mean Scotland, marshalling Labour behind him and knocking Salmond for six with his razor sharp wit, communication skills and friendly even tempered banter (not to mention the odd Nokia).

Still, I suppose these are the same people who thought Alastair Carmichael was a bruiser with debating skills that would put Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon back in their boxes.

Gordon Brown? No problem 

So you can see where the idea comes from.

Imagine being replaced by his old enemy! Gordon's revenge for "Back From the Brink"? 

Or a chance for Alistair's second book "Better Together Apart"?

SO BRITAIN IS DOING WELL ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Disabled activists have hailed as a major victory a decision by Scottish GPs to call on the government to abandon its controversial “fitness for work” tests.

Doctors at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) annual Scottish conference of GPs voted for a motion that called for the “inadequate, computer-based assessments” to be abandoned in favour of a “rigorous and safe” system that does not cause “avoidable harm” to disabled people and those with long-term health conditions.

The motion said the work capability assessment (WCA), the test introduced by the Labour government in 2008 to assess people’s eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits, has “little regard to the nature or complexity” of disabled people’s needs. (This is because all it aims to do is to save the British government forking out money to keep sick people alive. It has better things planned for that money. The toilets in the House of Lords need upgrading. Aristocratic bottoms need to park themselves on suitable upholstered pots!)

************

Key Labour figures have squashed hopes that the party might call for the controversial “fitness for work” test to be scrapped, despite GPs demanding that it “end with immediate effect”.

GPs at a British Medical Association (BMA) conference voted unanimously last week for the work capability assessment (WCA) to be replaced with a “rigorous and safe system that does not cause avoidable harm” to their patients.

But senior Labour politicians have this week made it clear that they do not agree with the GPs. (Clearly, of course MPs know far better than GPs how medical assessments should be made.)

The assessment – which tests eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits – was introduced by the Labour government in 2008, and is now a centrepiece of the coalition’s welfare reforms.

***********

A disabled man has described how he was forced to scavenge for food from supermarket bins, as a result of the government’s welfare reforms.

Clive Baulch was one of about 20 disabled people who presented personal evidence about the impact of the government’s austerity programme on their human rights, during a testimony session in London.

A recording of the session – organised by Inclusion London and Disabled People Against Cuts – will be sent to Shuaib Chalklen, the UN’s special rapporteur on disability, whose job is to monitor progress around the world towards equal opportunities.

He had been due to visit England to attend the meeting and the launch of a human rights report but had to postpone the trip at short notice.

Baulch told the meeting how he was made redundant in April 2012, three years after he became disabled through a massive stroke. (You may remember how the Work and Pensions Secretary once took the best part of the year off work, on full pay, because his wife was ill.)

In November 2012 he had his benefits stopped because he was told he hadn’t been “looking for work diligently”, even though he had applied for 600 jobs.

Within days he had run out of money. “I was in pretty dire straits. I tried begging. I also tried three in the morning round the back of the supermarkets looking in skips. I spent a lot of my days ‘striving’.”

He told Disability News Service later that he had taken food from supermarket skips on about five occasions. (This is the same government that hailed its successes in the paralympics in London, and claimed that they were the best games ever. Irony or what?)

(Also taken from Disability News Service.)

*************

Talking about human rights, I see Cameron has said that he has talked to the Chinese about human rights on this visit. 

As he has and every Brit has for  as long as they have been going there. I wonder what good they think it has done. China's record on human rights remains relatively dismal.

And in the meantime the British government is evicting elderly and disabled people from houses because they cannot afford to pay the bedroom tax and there are no smaller properties available to them to go to.

According the the People's Daily, the state controlled Chinese newspaper, not a lot.

The Independent and Telegraph both report that an editorial, surely approved at the highest level, says that Britain is no longer a power, but a small European state and that it was only good as a destination for education and holidays.

Well, it's good to know that it is useful for something.

Cameron effected  indifference, but inside he must surely be seething. 

They don't treat the First Minister with that kind of disrespect.

Chief Editorial Editor at The Independent:-- "When you look at Darling now, though, and you listen to what he says about Scotland, and you hear him saying petulantly, as he did on Monday, that he was “angry, very angry” about what he insisted was the loose way of the Salmond team with its economic figures, did you believe him? Or did you think, as I instinctively did, that Darling, with his clipped phrases, his mock scorn and his negativity, were the past, and the future was somewhere and someone else?"

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/if-i-were-young-and-scottish-i-would-vote-yes-to-independence-8970579.html

I think that's mean Santa.
Give the boy a gun and some bullets, and some for his friends.

He's all heart, apart from his head which is clearly a condom,
suggesting that he's a bit of a.....

Who on earth is this idiot? Anyone here watch daytime tv ?

Oh look, Mr Duncan Smith is on fire. If I wasn't so tired, I'd phone the fire brigade.
Still, I'll be refreshed in the morning. Maybe I'll phone then.

Dear Scotland

It seems that our esteemed first minister Carwyn Jones has visited your country to warn you against the evils of independence.

Please do not assume that he speaks for all Welsh people. He does not. He speaks only for the Labour party in Wales.

Labour has ruled Wales as a political feoff for almost a century and has, in that time, reduced our nation to a door mat for our next-door neighbours to wipe their feet on. The Welsh electorate are regarded as mere voting fodder. We are here to ensure that Westminster occasionally has a left-of-centre government.

Welsh constituencies contain communities that are amongst the poorest and most deprived in the UK. Little has been done to improve their conditions: after all, poor areas are more likely to vote Labour that affluent ones.

Many of us in Wales are eagerly following developments in Scotland. We look to you Scots to lead the way.

We hope that you grasp your future and lead your nation from under the cloud of English domination into the light of freedom.

Good luck Scotland.

Chris Schoen,

Tal Gwynedd, Heol y Bedyddwyr, Penygroes, Caernarfon, Gwynedd.

IS THIS ONE OF BORIS'S 16%?

If you need a demonstration of how completely unattached from the reality of Scottish life the South of England (and the government which is domiciled there) is, then this is surely it.

He says that they need to build houses for people in their first jobs, just a basic job, earning £50,000-£80,000.

He might well be from another planet. In fact he's the deputy leader of Westminster Council, which might as well be another planet... unless Mr Osborne is going to introduce new minimum wage legislation?

THE SHEER GENIUS OF DANNY AND GIDEON

The public has been asking for a long time now, that something be done to reduce the scandalous number of people living in fuel poverty, which is defined as "the need to spend more that 10% of household income to maintain 21°C for the main living area and 18°C for other rooms".

And bless them, the kind and warm hearted people at the coalition have done just that. There’s no messing about, either, when it comes to GeorgeOsborne and Danny Alexander. 

No sir. 

The new situation will remove 800,000 families from fuel poverty overnight.

AND Gideon the Red Faced Chancellor and Danny the Red Haired Chief Secretary are giving this generous Yuletide gift from the generosity of their little hearts, it will be in place BEFORE Christmas, and it won't cost any of us a brass bean!

YES, you hear me aright. Praise be. The spirit of Christmastide is upon even the stony hearts of the Condemns!

What, I hear you ask, are our beneficent benefactorial betters planning to do to make the lives of the pauper class a little less intolerable?

Are you sitting comfortably? Well then, I'll tell you.

They are going to REDEFINE fuel poverty.

Genius or what?

Yes, from sometime in December, fuel poverty will be redefined to where households’ “required fuel costs are above average, and where, were they to spend that amount they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line”.

Bless them.

According to MPs the new definition will move more 800,000 households out of fuel poverty in England (no one bothered to count Scotland as no one really cares that much, I suspect. Maybe it’s harder to vote YES, if you have frostbite?).

The logic of this is that many poor households being far smaller than average, cost less than average to heat. This means that even if heating costs a significant part of their income, a household still won't technically be “fuel poor” (and entitled to the attendant benefits) because the amount it needs to spend to keep warm is still below average.

They’ll just starve to death instead.

A slight flaw in selling this as an improvement in conditions for the criminally poor is that freezing to death is relatively painless after the first few hours. Hypothermia is, in fact, one of the nicer ways to die.

Starvation, on the other hand, is deeply unpleasant.

Still, given that the Condemns are at the heart of this, you'd expect a flaw here or there, and if you're poor you can’t have everything!

YES WINS ST ANDREW'S DAY DEBATE

Johann Lamont has taken part in a debate at a school in her constituency which resulted in a win for Yes.

 

Ms Lamont was up against Glasgow MSP and External Affairs and International Development Minister (and close associate of Munguin)  Humza Yousaf, at the seventh annual St Andrew’s Day political debate hosted by St Paul’s School in Pollok on Glasgow’s southside.

About 200 senior pupils took part in the debate chaired by Dave Moxham, STUC Deputy General Secretary.

Questions from the floor ranged from currency and defence to what independence offers young people in the future.

The vote at the end of the debate resulted as follows:

 Yes 104 votes, No 81 (56% v 44%).

Humza Yousaf said: "The Yes campaign is characterised by its hope, aspiration and optimism. The change for young people in determining their future clearly inspired the pupils at St Paul's High School, in Johann Lamont's own constituency.”

**********

"STILL NO ANSWERS", SAYS ALISTAIR

Let's sum up then. Alistair...4 questions, 0 answers!
Well done! Next!

I thought those of you who did not have to rise at daft o'clock today might be interested in a radio programme you will have missed at 5.45 am!

"With the SNP announcing its plans for an independent Scotland this week, Lesley Curwen profiles Nicola Sturgeon - a figure who may be key to the party's chances of success.

"She's deputy to Alex Salmond but is central to the party's campaign, and she's playing a major but perhaps under-reported role in negotiating with London too.

"How did she achieve such a rapid rise to political prominence? And why is she so obsessed with the TV drama Borgen?"

The Secretary of State for the Union and someone who 
wanted a selfie with him. It takes all sorts!

And just for a bit of laugh to brighten Sunday morning, I thought you might also want to read Alistair Carmichael's blog ironically entitled "Still No Answers". 

No, honestly, it is! 

If you don't believe me, here's the link.

While we're on the subject of the Secretary of State, I'm wondering how Alistair is squaring with his namesake (and colleague in Better Together), Alistair Darling, the excuse he offered Nicola for the misery his government is inflicting on Scotland's children in poverty. 

Alistair C reminded the DFM that there were having to make some difficult decisions (like it wasn't the Tory programme all along) and that it was all the fault of the previous government (Labour) which had left them (the Tory coalition) with such a financial mess to clear up, leaving them with no other alternative to snatching food from the mouths of the country's poorest kids. 

I was wondering if anyone has made a connection between 'Labour', 'Financial Mess' and the then 'Chancellor of the Exchequer', aka head of Better Together.

Still, at least BT isn't run by Liam inappropriate childish note thick as mince Byrne!