If you pay peanuts you get...

....Leading politicians have come under more scrutiny than ever today
with the publication of expense claims for key individuals. Amongst
them Blair, Kennedy, Howard, Cameron, Brown and Prescott have all been
highlighted by the press in some tiresome quest for muck to sling. £4k
here £20k there, council tax, TV licenses, mortgages and even food (to
the delight of the anti-John Prescott-brigade).

I was also in the car listening to LBC and a debate about MP's
salaries and how they wanted to raise them. Putting expenses aside for
a moment, our MPs get paid somewhere in the low £60ks a year and they
are complaining and suggesting that it should rise to £100k or in that
region. Predictably the media was adamant that this was extravagance
to the extreme (bearing in mind that the media knows nothing of
extravagance itself). Even I started off feeling anger at the prospect
that these loafers who hardly ever actually go to parliament anymore
and appear simply to do no more than mince about for the cameras in an
attempt to persuade us that we've never had it so good, could be
suggesting that even more public money be diverted to their pockets.

Then I started to think about it. Perhaps the reason why it seems like
all our politicians are fiddling expenses and /or in bed with dodgy
businessmen and doing shady ppp/pfi deals or worse (if there can be
any worse) is because they don't get paid enough to deter them from
corruption. When you consider what these people actually do for the
country.....they run it! I think they actually get a very bad deal
considering the reason why a lot of these people go into politics in
the first place is because they are idealists wanting to make a
positive change to the country and possibly the world or even the
galaxy perhaps Mr Blair? You could almost suggest that as tax payers
we even exploit our MPs to a certain extent, expecting them to run the
country for £60k a year when you consider what some of us get paid for
doing much less important and mundane jobs and I have found a couple
of examples from both the celebrity and non-celebrity world to
exaggerate my point

JK Rowling according to Forbes in 2006 was earning over £100k per day.

CatwalkQueen.tv claims that Kate moss earned £4 million in 2007 (up to
£15million in previous years).

According to the Times in 2007 David Beckham is earning £70k a day

However I very quickly want to mention that poor Leona Lewis is only
earning enough to survive (see previous posts).

Leona and JK aside, I probably wouldn't want either Beckham or Moss
anywhere near to positions where they would have an atom of the
responsibility it needs to run a country. David Beckham managed to
achieve nothing as captain of England other than unmitigated failure
for years. Kate moss is a Drug user who take off her clothes for a
living (or puts them on? I can never remember), yet they manage to
command much bigger salaries than our politicians. JK has amassed her
fortune writing children's books for Christ's sake. Now I want to make
it clear that I am not knocking any of the people I have mentioned for
having made money or even how they have made it (I would love to make
it too after all) however I am trying to make the point that
considering what these people earn and the ultimate importance or what
they do do, we pay our politicians very poorly in deed for running the
country or if you look at it another way our lives.

Kate Moss doesn't model because she enjoys putting on and taking off
clothes only. She does it because she knows she can earn £4million a
year doing it. Similarly, David Beckham isn't playing football for a
living for the love of it alone. JK certainly isn't writing her books
solely because she wants to entertain the children of the world. They
are all arguably the best at what they do, but they're all doing it
for cold hard filthy luca. If there's nothing wrong with that, then
why can't MPs expect to be paid more for the job that they are doing.
Presumably they are also the best at what they are doing, or maybe
they are the best for the money we are offering.

On the other hand, perhaps if we were to offer more, or even a lot
more, then we would attract a different caliber of politician. Imagine
a country run by blue chip CEO calibre politicians. We would probably
be much better off in the long run. We would probably have to speak to
people in India if we ever had occasion to call government departments
and it would probably take over 30 mins to get through to anyone (hang
on a second that already happens!!!) but at least the country would be
profitable. Who knows....even I might put my name in the hat if that
were to happen.
.

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