What's Sauce For The Goose ......

[Canary42]

The Government is claiming that benefit capping has encouraged job seekers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23306092

Should we apply the same capping process to MPs' emoluments to encourage them to do better as well ?

[sandyRoe]

They seem to be adopting the carrot and stick approach. Job seekers need to be wacked to encourage them towards work, while MPs need a juicy carrot as incentive to encourage them to do better.

[factor-fiction]

That's a bit of on sequitur, Canary. The idea of capping benefits is (partly) to encourage people to make a life on benefits slightly less attractive for some people and encourage them to either look harder for a job or look for less expensive accommodation or not bring more children into the world. I don't see any connection to MPs emoluments in this respect.

However, I do agree in another way with your point. Another reason for capping benefits is that it's perceived as unfair that someone who doesn't work can be better off than someone who does work. I can see that it's perceived as unfair to increase MPs' pay when others in work have had pay frozen

[factor-fiction]

Oops- first sentence was supposed to say "That's a bit of a non sequitur..."

[tonyav]

I think that all MP's salary's should be performance related.

[factor-fiction]

How do you measure that though, tonyav. One way is to see if they get reelected- perhaps they should be paid less and the money saved goes into a pot from which a one-off bonus is paid if they are reelected

[tonyav]

I think I would go with what benefits they have bought to their respective constituencies. Don't know how you could measure that though.

[sp1814]

MPs, like nurses, the police and firefighters are public servants.

If the public purse is being squeezed (rubbish metaphor, but you know what I mean), then surely that squeeze should hit MPs?

[tonyav]

To right, sp1814, can't ever see that happening though.

[dzug2]

Problem is if you squeeze MPs pay too much you will only get people as MPs who don't need the salary - company directors and the like. It's already happening to some extent.

Guess whose interests they will legislate in? Not yours or mine to be sure

[FredPuli43]

You'll end up with a disproportionate numbers of MPs who have private means or incomes from companies (guess whose interests they'll be for) or who are sponsored by unions (ditto).

We don't pay them nearly enough. That's why the government of the day turned a blind eye to expenses; it was a way of increasing the salary by the back door.