I had I suppress genuine laughter when I read about the MPs trying to justify a £10,000 pay rise.
First, let us consider MP expenses. For a start, the fact that they get such expenses on top of a very generous salary is bad enough. But then you consider the shocking abuse of this system when the expenses scandal was in full swing. An atrocious abuse of power and one that, lets he honest, probably continues to this day despite the slap on the wrist they received. So to claim thousands of pounds on housekeepers, taxi fares, take aways to name but a few, I find it astonishing that they feel they are in a position to complain. It is the equivalent to me siphoning client money at work into my own account, getting caught, and then demanding a pay rise. Not only would I face criminal charges, I would also be fired from my job and find it nigh on impossible to find another one. But here we are, with some (not all, it has to be said) MPs claiming they deserve a rise. Osborne, for example. Clearly he struggles on his current salary, we’ve all seen the infamous photo of him ‘slumming it’ and eating a burger! But no, even when attempting to display the tiniest element of normality, our dear MPs embarrass themselves, when it is revealed that the burger is from upmarket chain ‘Byron’. Ah. Suddenly my vision of catching George Osborne frequenting the local McD’s is shattered.
The issue here is not the pay rise. The issue, in my opinion, is the self righteous attitude of some who have an innate sense of entitlement. In my job I am awarded a pay rise for hard work and by benefitting the company as a whole. But for MPs to be casually offered a rise of £10,000 is just baffling. And the timing couldn’t be worse, as further cutbacks are announced, most prominent being the cuts to legal aid. UK justice suffers as MPs enjoy a bigger pay packet. Call me biased, but I’m of the opinion that legal aid and access to justice is far more important than lining the pockets of MPs who have proven time and time again that they aren’t deserving of their position of great power, let alone a 5 figure pay rise.
Then of course you have Clegg and Cameron, seemingly ‘anti-payrise’. Pardon the scepticism, but I liken that to the Grayling ‘u-turn’. It roughly translates to ‘look everyone, we’re normal and we’re on your side (don’t forget to vote for us!)’.
One MP suggested that ‘if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’. I can’t be the only one to be confused by this? Is he referring to himself as a monkey, implying that he is incapable of doing his job because of his oh so terrible pay? This seems to me to be an admission that, all the while MPs aren’t getting what they want, they are providing a half hearted service whilst they throw their toys out of the pram.
Now, my job is terrible pay. But it’s my first job in a law firm and my first out of uni, in a notoriously difficult market, so I was more than happy to just have the opportunity! But I’m pretty sure I’d be sacked if I were to openly admit that the firm have got themselves a monkey because they pay peanuts. I’m hired to do a job, and one that I incidentally chose to apply for.
I’ve been brought up to follow the simple idea that to be rewarded, you must first earn it. Perhaps our MPs should focus more attention on earning respect from the public, rather than a pay rise. I can acknowledge that to be an MP must be an incredibly strenuous, difficult job, and the pressure must be immense. But then the papers are filled with the wonder that is Grayling, with his ridiculous proposals, and I suddenly begin to wonder what it is these people have done to warrant such a pay rise (one that, embarrassingly enough for me, is almost as much as I earn in a year).
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