MPs get paid £67,000 per annum but a row has just erupted with two senior MPs who were both previously foreign secretaries apparently being prepared to be paid cash in return for offering their services to a private firm.
Some reporters for the Daily Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme posed as the staff of a fake Chinese firm which met separately with the MPs to discuss paying them for various services.
The Labour MP Mr Straw said that he would normally charge £5,000 per day for his services and Sir Malcolm Rifkind the Conservative MP for Kensington said his charges would be “somewhere in the region of £5,000 to £8,000 for half a days work”.
The Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, has recommended that there should be no second jobs for MPs and they should focus on being an MP?
What do you think? Is it OK to have a second job, so long as they pay tax? Does a second job allow potential exploitation?
I had thought that was the way it is supposed to be, that's what I had thought being a politician was serving your community, seems to have changed a bit.
How is it possible that they cannot be affected by their private interests, it bound to bias them? Isn't it .
By excusing themselves, even doing that would bias your colleagues to consider how their deliberations would effect the per son.
We supposedly don't have a class system now, but it does seem to be jobs for the boys, that's not the correct basics for a fairer democracy. Which is what the system is all about. Same as first past the post isn't a fair representation of the way we vote. It's a much simpler way to get results. Unfortunately in the recent supposedly unbiased referendum which was poorly explained by all politicians in power at the time would have created a better and fairer situation. With only a small percentage of voters voting, I feel that the number of people who showed no interest in being involved should have been a warning to the government that something was seriously wrong. Just because it would have effected all of them and some certainties would become probabilities, thus giving us a fairer system. All it did was waste a load if public money.
How can a man/woman with such a responsible job be able to do justice to his country and constituency while doing a second job.
a) Their salary is quite sufficient when you take into consideration their endless and sometimes fiddled expenses. YES, THEY STILL DO IT. When I was working I had to produce receipts for ALL my expenses (which were closely checked). I did not have staff to help me do it like M.P.s have.
b) Do not forget their ridiculously long holiday entitlement ? How many days work do they actually do at Westminster ?
c) Have you noticed how empty the house of commons is on a Friday afternoon ? Most M.P.s disappear off to their second homes or constituencies on Thursday for a long week-end.
They should all regard it as a privilege to represent us and not regard it as bottomless money pit !
Ps It also helps keep their parliamentary wages down
Then politicians get away with everything .They find it difficult to manage even when their claiming for all and sundry.What will happen to Rifkind & Straw nothing as usual .
£67k is twice the average amount Brits get paid and they should do their jobs as MPs not try and get other monies on the side. Stop all MPs second jobs I say and make sure they do their jobs properly!