The “grim” struggle of living on an MP’s *£81,932 salary* [angry]

#3 SHIRTS!!!

JaneJudge

though to be fair, i imagine suit would come under expenses

My point exactly ! I was expected to arrive at work suited and booted and never in any deemed casual or comfy! Did I claim/receive any help paying for those clothes which promptly went to charity when I retired cos I never used them other than for work? No I didn't. I asked at virtually every company I worked at if we could have a uniform akin to the bank workers? 100% refused stating it would be too expensive, even though a suit jacket one skirt 3shorts and one pair of trousers would have costs a mere £52 from work wear company! About the price of a smart blouse.........

TV presenters and footballers aren't paid by ALL of UK taxpayers though are they? When you draw your income from money squeezed out of the very poorest in our ranks, you should be prudent, and NOT a greedy trough muncher like the majority of those in parliament. Expenses/other jobs/ subsidies on everything from a cup of tea to a mahoosive mortgage on a second 'home' that you can even get away with renting out! All these 'extras' render ANY defence of a salary increase permanently redundant in my view.

It’s a salary to dream about and not to complain about. He chose politics as others choose various ways of working. You don’t have a long serving nurse bleating about his/her salary.

JaneJudge

though to be fair, i imagine suit would come under expenses

There's a tax case which expressly denies tax relief for clothing, with certain exceptions. A suit is generally not an exception

My heart bleeds for them ... not!

Pammie1

@TanaMa. My mum’s basic state pension is £150 a week, so £7800 a year, and the top up of pension credit doesn’t make much difference. Don’t know where they get the figure of £23,000. Just worked out Bottomley’s weekly income from his ‘meagre’ MP salary - £1490 a week. That’s ten times my mum’s pension !!

The Higher Income pensioners not only get a state pension but probably a Company pension or a private pension plan. It all adds up.

!! It is a high salary!! Most people are in 20k OR Less!!!

@TanaMa. My mum’s basic state pension is £150 a week, so £7800 a year, and the top up of pension credit doesn’t make much difference. Don’t know where they get the figure of £23,000. Just worked out Bottomley’s weekly income from his ‘meagre’ MP salary - £1490 a week. That’s ten times my mum’s pension !!

I see the figure of £23k quoted as a pensioner's income - who gets that sum of money?! Not in this country if mine is anything to go by!!

Brilliant Alegrais. That's just what I was getting at, thank you. The point is that even know this is how we all make assumptions an MP not know is appauling. He/she should make it their business to know.

www.theguardian.com/money/2008/aug/04/workandcareers.executivesalaries

This is really old, but plus ça change.... I heard Polly Toynbee talking about this work at the time.

Telling extract: When asked to relate themselves to the rest of the population, these high-earners utterly misjudged the magnitude of their privilege.

How much, we asked our group, would it take to put someone in the top 10% of earners? They put the figure at £162,000. In fact, in 2007 it was around £39,825, the point at which the top tax band began. Our group found it hard to believe that nine-tenths of the UK's 32m taxpayers earned less than that.

"Desperate" describes the situation people on U.C. find themselves in having lost £20 a week from their incomes. And the many people who won't be able to afford to heat their homes this Winter due to the hefty hike in gas prices, or to afford to eat properly due to rising food prices...
Social deprivation is now reaching levels that privileged M.Ps simply have no conception of...

I'm sorry if I tooke the thread of track a bit. I have a bit of a bee in my bonet about taxes. I think all income earned, unearned or assumed should be put together and taxed on a very progressive level of income tax. But that wasn't why I brought Question Time man in.

I have a feeling that we all have a natural tendency not to really think about incomes but assume that most of the people we know live much like ourselves. We may think they have a little less, or a little more but generally they are "people like us". (I think we do the same with ages - you are all round about my age, give or take a little )

Most of us make it our business to try and understand that this is not true, and by how much it isn't true and how it affects people. Peter Bottomley didn't. That would be bad enough if he were living an everyday life, but he is an MP. He should have made it his business to know. But then, he is a Conservative.

Alegrias1

I think we're giving the Question Time guy too much credit.

IIRC correctly, he knew that some people earned a lot more than £80k so on £80k he couldn't be in the top 5%. For instance, somebody on £100,000 is earning more than 5% more than he is, so....

I introduced him to the thread but I wasn't giving him any credit. He was earning a very good income. What I said earlier was he could see people around him who where not 'tarred with' the "top 5%" brush but had a great deal more than he did.

He is right from the point of view he was taking.

Ginpin

MaizieD

"But when you are, and I think Peter is, over 70 and you’ve all those years of seniority and you are [still] making £82,000 pounds.

Doesn't the Father of the House get a bit extra?

My husband was over 60 with 40 years of teaching experience. ( Jumping through hoops and coping with moving goalposts for the last 30 of those years) Thank goodness for the children!

His salary was a whopping £34,000 just before he retired. !!!

My friend exactly the same !

MaggsMcG

Don't forget the Labour Party MPs earn the same money. All politicians are well off. All of them have no idea of the struggles of the low paid or those who cannot work.

True but did one of them describe living on the salary as “grim” ?

MaizieD

^"But when you are, and I think Peter is, over 70 and you’ve all those years of seniority and you are [still] making £82,000 pounds.^

Doesn't the Father of the House get a bit extra?

My husband was over 60 with 40 years of teaching experience. ( Jumping through hoops and coping with moving goalposts for the last 30 of those years) Thank goodness for the children!

His salary was a whopping £34,000 just before he retired. !!!

montymops getting out and meeting the public might be the case for some MPs, but again I refer you to Mr. Swire:

Representing constituents involves case work, and this is often shared with a dedicated team of back room staff who are invaluable in sifting through the ‘system’ and its diverse bureaucratic obstinacies. Although the MP bears overall responsibility in what he signs off.

My experience is that the local Conservative MP (other parties are available, but not here ) is almost always available for a meeting (business/charity/etc.) that involves a photo op, but case work for constituents is handled by the 'back room staff' as mentioned above.

Ah now - there you all are making the rookie mistake of thinking that being an MP is actually a job, when in fact it is nothing of the sort. Why do I say that? Well actually, I don't. But it is the view of conservative MPs as represented by Hugo Swire. He can explain in his own words:

The problem lies in a misunderstanding that being an MP is a job. It isn’t really, it is more a representative role. A back bencher’s task is to represent his or her constituents, make laws and hold the Government to account. It is not an executive function. With about 550 others doing the same thing, it should not require full-time labour. Yes, these are his own undiluted words. He goes on to say:

If an MP uses his time efficiently he has plenty of room for other interests. I, for example, have some paid outside interests.....MP Geoffrey Cox, the Conservative MP for Torridge and West Devon.....earned over half a million last year as a barrister. Have his constituents suffered as a result?

So, in fact MPs are being rewarded for their "role" to the tune of £81k+ and if they take second and third jobs, so what? I'll let (now ex-MP) Hugo Swire have the last word, in the context of another MP being criticised for having several jobs in addition to his role as an MP Mr. Swire said:
I fear much of the uproar ...... tells us more about salary envy than anything else, and that is not a good basis for an argument.

Good job they do - gets them out in the community to meet the general public - Instead of being isolated in the ivory tower.

montymops

I have to agree with JenniferEccles - compared to others such as all those she mentioned - plus - NHS hopeless managers, the latest Director General of the BBC , I could go on - MPs really don’t earn a big salary. Some of course, are more pro- active than others but they do all claim to be working hard for all of us and not just for self interest. Politics however, is a dirty game - there’s a lot of spite, envy and greed about - not always helpful for decisive action -

It's funny how MPs manage to find the time to do other work.

I have to agree with JenniferEccles - compared to others such as all those she mentioned - plus - NHS hopeless managers, the latest Director General of the BBC , I could go on - MPs really don’t earn a big salary. Some of course, are more pro- active than others but they do all claim to be working hard for all of us and not just for self interest. Politics however, is a dirty game - there’s a lot of spite, envy and greed about - not always helpful for decisive action -

It is almost unbelievable that Peter Bottomley has actually said this, but he has. He can’t have the first idea about how most people live.

I volunteer with the local food bank. I don't know how poor the people are who are refered to us but it is insulting to them to complain about an MP's salary. Looking at the median incomes quoted by a previous poster, I'm retired but am on significantly less than the retired figure - actually quite close to the bottom 1/5 figure! I still have a mortgage, some savings and don't consider myself 'poor' just on a low income on which I have to be very careful. Unfortunately many people on fairly high incomes have no clue as to how the other half lives, yet they are the ones making decisions about benefit levels and taxes!