Is Being an MP a ‘proper’ Job?
 |
| Tune into the BBC's Parliament Channel to take a look at what your well-paid representatives are doing, and as often as not this is the sight you'll see. So where are they all? Probably at their other second and third jobs. This makes being an MP one of the most profitable, easiest meal-tickets today, whilst these same people instruct us on how to tighten our belts. |
Here’s an imaginary scenario. After a successful interview, you get a coveted new job with decent pay. 40 hours per week, weekends off. But on your first morning, at around 10.30 am, you call by your boss’s office and say;
“I’ll be out for a while now - be back about 3 this afternoon. Got a couple of other jobs to go to, so is that OK?” Your feet wouldn’t touch the ground.
However, get elected as an MP, and the concept of work and wages changes dramatically. If you’re already a consultant, a lawyer, a banker or public relations boss, no worries - you can slope off and carry on those occupations and earn vast sums and your place on the green benches will always be there when you can find time to wander into the Commons. Just by having your name attached to the letter-heading of some company as a non-executive director can score you a handy £5k or more. You’re a Member of Parliament, and therefore privileged to do what you like, work-wise.
Ex- Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared income worth £1.37million last year, but stated it was used for his private office or donated to charity. Other MPs seem to find a salary of £66,000 (that’s a measly £1,269.23 per week, plus expenses etc.) a bit of a challenge to live on. So, if you’re a Public Sector worker, or especially one of the many private sector workers on zero-hours contracts, imagine how happy you might be earning £31.73 per hour. Could you manage?
In the parliamentary year 2012-13 MPs earned an extra £7million from jobs, speeches and directorships, according to recent figures. Nearly half of Britain’s MPs declared earning money from outside the Commons, including 20 who received more from second jobs than their standard salary.
So what are these jobs and how does this affect their performance as your public representative, elected by us, and paid for from our taxes? For example, Tory Barrister Stephen Phillips pocketed a staggering £740,000 and Geoffrey Cox a piffling £417,000, whilst ex-Labour Cabinet ministers Alistair Darling and Jack Straw earned £263,000 and £183,000 respectively.
After the expenses scandal, rules were brought in requiring MPs to declare their outside work – and the time they devoted to such jobs. Yet this shameless moonlighting continues.
Tune in to TV’s Parliament Channel, and on most days the House of Commons seems virtually empty, even during some very serious debates, probably because that second job has wrenched your MP away from the benches. Living in comfort in a privileged, unreal world, they inflict austerity upon us, telling us to look for work, whilst they have plenty. Is time, therefore, that our elected, well-paid representatives did the sole job we pay them for, and nothing else? What they do at weekends is their business, but what they’re not doing for us during their paid working ours is certainly ourbusiness. They need a discernible contract, a stipulated working regime, and like the rest of us, they should be required to stick to it.
Sources: Guardian / Daily Telegraph / Daily Mail.