The political sense of a bucket of lightly-drowned weasels

[fivemack]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7420848.stm

"MPs could seek to avoid future expenses criticism by awarding themselves an automatic lump sum of £23,000 a year for second homes, a newspaper says"

"If a lump sum payment were made to each MP, the need for these documents to be produced would disappear and there could be a considerable cash boost for those MPs who spend less than the £23,000 permitted."

Handing out lump sums in cash to MPs is the kind of behaviour for which we tut and deduct at least three points when rating the governmental virtue of random countries in South America; what's next, black Mercedes? Is there any merit at all to the idea that important people do not need to provide receipts when spending public money?

If the issue is that MPs need second homes in London, would it make more sense to get Parliament to buy a random seven-hundred-room hotel, a class of building which London hardly lacks, and have them live there?

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

In fairness to the poor sods, The Politics Show got some random punters off the street and asked them to investigate this and they came up with pretty much the same proposal - increase the basic wage and cut all the expenses and allowances.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's that unreasonable that all expenses and allowances have to be public enough to require them to pass muster with the Daily Mail and the Guardian alike, though I suppose that's optimistic given how cross the Daily Mail can manage to get itself to be with the fact that some prisoners are paid a pound an hour, and that the Guardian would argue that Saint Jerome spent unforgiveably much on lion food.

But to suggest an increase in the basic wage by what is at present the absolute maximum permitted cost allowance seems hopelessly imprudent, and an insult to any MP who in the past took care to be parsimonious with public money.

The expenses and allowances (http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/M05.pdf) (OK, the biggest allowance is £93854 for staffing, for which the most recent embarrassments have indicated that some MPs have been very loose with ensuring that the work done corresponds to the job description in All MPs’ staff should be employed on agreed pay scales, linked to job descriptions and standard contracts prepared by the Department of Finance and Administration) amount to about 250% of the MP's standard wage (£61820 base wage; £93854 staffing, £22193 Incidental Expenses, £24006 Additional Costs, £10400 Communications)