MPs - what's yours worth?

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The hysterical press reaction to a proposal to increase the salary of MPs after the 2015 election explains exactly why we have got in a mess with this issue.

For decades, all governments have dodged the issue of setting a salary for MPs that reflects the level of responsibility they have in the (accurate) belief that there would be an outcry if they tried to do so. Instead, they allowed to develop a ‘wink and a nudge’ expenses system, the horrendous excesses of which don’t need to be rehearsed here, but you may remember second home flipping, duck houses, drained moats, dog food and dirty films. Many less-than-honourable members had to pay back significant sums and a few (some would say not enough) even ended up getting up close and personal with the prison system.

So after that scandal, Parliament decided in 2009 to take itself out of the process altogether, and set up the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to determine salaries, expenses and pension arrangements. IPSA has now done what it’s paid to do, and come up with a proposal following research and consultation, that MPs salaries should be increased by about 10% after the next election. There will also be some changes to expenses and pensions to offset in part the additional cost.

Politicians – many of them privately very wealthy –  are queuing up to deplore these proposals. Of course they are not in a position to turn the proposals down, because they took themselves out of the decision making process. This situation has led various tweeters to criticise the Prime Minister for lacking authority/backbone/both. I would refer such critics to the Law of Unintended Consequences. If you give power away, the people you give it to may come to decisions with which you disagree.

Imagine the furore if IPSA had concluded that MPs were, in fact, overpaid, and proposed a 10% reduction. Would these same politicians be so keen to appear on TV saying they wouldn’t accept IPSA’s findings? I very much doubt it. And the howls of media derision would turn to paeans of praise.

So here are my thoughts on this thorny topic:

The salary paid to politicians should be a fair reflection of the level of responsibility they take and appropriate comparators. Calls for payment by performance are nonsense. That is judged through the ballot box, and the power of recall if it ever gets enacted. I don’t know what that salary level is: that’s why we have IPSA. Personally, I wouldn’t be unhappy if that salary level was £100k, but with strings attached, which I’m coming on to.

Once set, the pay of MPs should be adjusted annually in line with whatever comparator group is identified. The Civil Service is the obvious one, but their may be others.

While no-one wants politicians who are motivated solely by the salary, if we want intelligent and capable people to run the country they must be properly remunerated. Former GP Dr Sarah Woollaston MP has said that she took a £40k a year pay cut to become an MP – not many will be that altruistic. And although I do understand that for the majority of the population a salary of £66k is a king’s ransom, for a large number it really isn’t. Some of the journalists baying for IPSA blood wouldn’t get out of bed for £66k. If salary levels are not right, we will end up with a House of Commons made up of the very poor and the very rich.

Everyone who works for an employer is entitled not to be out of pocket for doing their jobs. There is nothing wrong with a properly managed scheme of expenses to reimburse costs incurred wholly and necessarily incurred in the course of their duties, and those calling for MPs to bear all of their own costs are being disingenuous.

Being an MP should be a full time job with proper office hours. It shouldn’t be a hobby or an act of philanthropy. It is not acceptable for MPs to spend their mornings in court or running businesses and then popping into the House for a few hours. The level of pay should reflect that.

The rules on conflict of interest need to be thoroughly examined. The scandal of the number of politicians with business interests in the private health sector, for example, should never be allowed to happen again.

So there you have it. I realise that this will not be a popular view but it’s how I see it. Feel free to disagree!

All Prime Ministers should be treated equally

If there is one day in all our lives on which we are entitled to expect unqualified praise, then surely it is the day of our funeral.

Who amongst us would anticipate, on that day, people to say ‘he was a nice chap, but made some stupid decisions and not many people liked him’ or ‘nice woman, but she was really rude and screwed up badly at work’?

So let it be for Baroness Thatcher. This is not the day to examine her record as Prime Minister, about which anyone who lived through the era will have strong views, either for or against. That’s not to say I won’t return to this at a later date.

No; what I want to consider is the appropriateness of her ceremonial funeral, with military honours, largely funded by the nation (us). I have read, but failed to grasp, the distinction between what happened this morning and a state funeral.  It was certainly the only funeral of a former Prime Minister attended by the Queen since that of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965, and few would begrudge Sir Winston the unique honour of his state funeral.

However, I believe that the decision taken by the Queen upon the advice, we are led to believe, of Gordon Brown, to grant Lady Thatcher a funeral of the same status as that of the Queen Mother and the Princess of Wales, raises a serious constitutional issue.

There have always been great Prime Ministers, average Prime Ministers and some who frankly will scarcely trouble the computer keyboards of future historians, and hopefully, as long as we have a democracy, there always will be. We, the voters, will decide which is which.

And that’s the point. The voters, not the monarch, are empowered to discern the wheat from the chaff. As soon as the sovereign head of state starts to decide that one Prime Minister is greater than another – in this case greater than all but one – we are on a slippery slope. One of the principal justifications of a constitutional monarch is her/his political neutrality, their ability to deal with Labour and Conservative leaders and to ‘treat those two imposters just the same’. I felt the same unease at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, when Tony Blair – Prime Minister for a decade – was disgracefully omitted from the guest list when all other serving Prime Ministers were invited.

Once the Queen gives the appearance of being politically biased, it must fundamentally change the relationship between her and future Prime Ministers of all hues. And that would be bad for the country.

Now that the pomp and circumstance – immaculately executed as always –is  over, a protocol needs to be drawn up on how the deaths of current or former Prime Ministers should be handled in future. I don’t mind particularly what send-off is decided upon by those democratically elected to make such judgments, but what is essential is that they all get the same treatment. That’s what democracy is about.