Politician's Pay
Discussion
Following on from the various anti-Government threads, I'd like to open the debate on what would happen if politicians got paid a lot more. A LOT more.
Tony Blair was reputed to earn £7m last year on public speaking and consultant engagements. So what if GB earnt £5m+ per year?
Would this attract finer, more intelligent minds that usually go into private business to earn millions? Would that in turn raise the quality of the government? Or will it just attract more selfishness and greed?
There is a similar thing happening in NZ at the moment - former foreign exchange exec John Key, who has worked all around the world, has returned to take the reigns of the opposition party. While in this case it's for the challenge, not for the money, he might not have the self serving characteristics of a career politician. It will be an interesting one to watch.
Tony Blair was reputed to earn £7m last year on public speaking and consultant engagements. So what if GB earnt £5m+ per year?
Would this attract finer, more intelligent minds that usually go into private business to earn millions? Would that in turn raise the quality of the government? Or will it just attract more selfishness and greed?
There is a similar thing happening in NZ at the moment - former foreign exchange exec John Key, who has worked all around the world, has returned to take the reigns of the opposition party. While in this case it's for the challenge, not for the money, he might not have the self serving characteristics of a career politician. It will be an interesting one to watch.
zac510 said:
I'm trying to suggest what if current politicians earnt as much as people in the private sector.
But you're using their income AFTER being a politician to demonstrate it.Most politicians don't get anywhere near a junior givernment post let alone be PM. It's no different to experienced directors of large companies going on to become highly paid non-executive directors in the 'second-half' of their career.
A Mr Nobody MP earns £62k. What private sector job would you compare it to?
V8mate said:
Most politicians don't get anywhere near a junior givernment post let alone be PM.
There are 96 ministers in the government, excluding peers and also excluding PPS's. Thats a pretty big proportion of the governing party's members. I would actually say that you would have to be an absolutely piss poor MP to have a career of any length and not serve as a minister of shadow minister at some stage. (Unless you are a Lib Dem obviously).I would also think that any MP who has served at least a couple of terms would be able to pick up a couple of non exec directorships at least after losing their seat. They also get compensation when they get kicked out by the electorate and staggeringly good pensions.
unrepentant said:
V8mate said:
Most politicians don't get anywhere near a junior givernment post let alone be PM.
There are 96 ministers in the government, excluding peers and also excluding PPS's. Thats a pretty big proportion of the governing party's members. I would actually say that you would have to be an absolutely piss poor MP to have a career of any length and not serve as a minister of shadow minister at some stage. (Unless you are a Lib Dem obviously).Look at the total package not the payslip.
There is a good argument for paying people enough to make them completely impartial and above persuation. Unfortunately not all are alike
and setting a figure would be difficult.
With the gutter press nowadays an essential is to find a candidate who is sqeeky clean before you put him foreward as a candidate. That rules out attracting many business people
I think they do ok at present if you include their SW1 pier de tares.
There is a good argument for paying people enough to make them completely impartial and above persuation. Unfortunately not all are alike
and setting a figure would be difficult.With the gutter press nowadays an essential is to find a candidate who is sqeeky clean before you put him foreward as a candidate. That rules out attracting many business people
I think they do ok at present if you include their SW1 pier de tares.
V8mate said:
But you're using their income AFTER being a politician to demonstrate it.
Most politicians don't get anywhere near a junior givernment post let alone be PM. It's no different to experienced directors of large companies going on to become highly paid non-executive directors in the 'second-half' of their career.
A Mr Nobody MP earns £62k. What private sector job would you compare it to?
I'm not demonstrating anything. If anything the Blair reference would have been to say that if he had never joined politics and perhaps had continued in law/the private sector, he might have been capable of earning that kind of salary throughout his entire career. And that would be significantly more.Most politicians don't get anywhere near a junior givernment post let alone be PM. It's no different to experienced directors of large companies going on to become highly paid non-executive directors in the 'second-half' of their career.
A Mr Nobody MP earns £62k. What private sector job would you compare it to?
A £62k might be a middle management salary, maybe contracting? I think that would be easier. If you're intelligent and capable enough, in the future you might want to go to a higher level and earn £150k+ or more. If a politician earnt that amount you might be tempted to do that. Might more minds be interested in politics if it paid more?
Anyway I'm not endorsing or suggesting this is a good option, I just wanted to discuss the idea!
Part of the trouble is MP's are paid far too much. In the old days a chap would make his money and then go into parliament later in life in order to serve his country and give something back. He had experience of life and would be able to contribute to debates with genuine knowledge. He certainly didn't do it for the money. It was more a matter of noblesse oblige. Now we have a bunch of MP's who (especially on the Labour benches) are almost all career politicians who have no experience of real life outside politics.
We should reduce MP's salaries to the minimum wage and revert to a time when people sat as MP's for the honour of serving and not for the remunerative benefits.
We should reduce MP's salaries to the minimum wage and revert to a time when people sat as MP's for the honour of serving and not for the remunerative benefits.
unrepentant said:
Part of the trouble is MP's are paid far too much. In the old days a chap would make his money and then go into parliament later in life in order to serve his country and give something back. He had experience of life and would be able to contribute to debates with genuine knowledge. He certainly didn't do it for the money. It was more a matter of noblesse oblige. Now we have a bunch of MP's who (especially on the Labour benches) are almost all career politicians who have no experience of real life outside politics.
We should reduce MP's salaries to the minimum wage and revert to a time when people sat as MP's for the honour of serving and not for the remunerative benefits.
Yeah but back in the real world you will get a bunch of retards or people who have failed in life.We should reduce MP's salaries to the minimum wage and revert to a time when people sat as MP's for the honour of serving and not for the remunerative benefits.
They get paid next to nothing for the scale of the job.
unrepentant said:
Part of the trouble is MP's are paid far too much. In the old days a chap would make his money and then go into parliament later in life in order to serve his country and give something back. He had experience of life and would be able to contribute to debates with genuine knowledge. He certainly didn't do it for the money. It was more a matter of noblesse oblige. Now we have a bunch of MP's who (especially on the Labour benches) are almost all career politicians who have no experience of real life outside politics.
We should reduce MP's salaries to the minimum wage and revert to a time when people sat as MP's for the honour of serving and not for the remunerative benefits.
or the alternative view is that you only got people with plenty of family money going into politicsWe should reduce MP's salaries to the minimum wage and revert to a time when people sat as MP's for the honour of serving and not for the remunerative benefits.
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