That's Right George - Look After Your Own

[Canary42]

MP's get enormous rise.

Everyone else - get ready for more cuts.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/more-tory-cuts-come-warns-7450565#rlabs=1%20rt$sitewide%20p$2

[ll_billym]

I don't see where in that article it says that it was George Osborne that decided that MP's get a pay rise - I think you may be misled by the tone of the headline.

[ubasses]

The pay of MPs is decided by an Independent body, and if my memory serves me correctly, when they tried to turn the last one down, they were told that they couldn't.

[VHG]

Give it a rest.

We are 1.5 TRILLION pounds in debt, we have overspent for decades.

Our debt is about 95% of our GDP, we cant carry on like this.

Trouble is if Labour got in they would put us more into debt so we finish up like Greece.

Greece debt is 175% of their GDP.

p.s. An MPs salary is £67,000 a year. I retired in 2002 and was earning around £55,000 a year in IT. So £67,000 is not a huge salary by today's standards.

[gina32]

Maybe not to you but it is to people on minimum wage

[-Talbot-]

a wallet-filling wage boost of £962 a year.

Wow ,, that nearly 20 quid a week innit?

[mikey4444]

MP's are celebrating while millions are struggling.

[DaisyNonna]

More than double mine when I retired and no perks

[jourdain2]

Yes, well. I am now a 2nd-class pensioner - not included in the £150 per week for the newcomers ( good for them, no hard feelings) although I paid in for more years than they did. Our mobile library (1 visit fortnightly) is under threat, as is the bus service - twice a week.

I gave up on the Tories some years ago. What is happening here is village solidarity and people offering lifts etc.. T.G. we are still a working village.

[naomi24]

jourdain2. //I paid in for more years than they did.//

How come? If you’re not included in the new pension scheme, you must have received your pension at an earlier age. Therefore they have worked longer and paid in for more years than you have.

//Our mobile library (1 visit fortnightly) is under threat, as is the bus service - twice a week.//

Central government doesn’t dictate the availability of libraries, nor as far as I’m aware, does it dictate bus timetables. Local government decides how to spend money allocated – and unless your buses are run by local government, which I doubt, the company concerned makes its own rules. Your criticism is misplaced.

[Jackdaw33]

The new flat rate only applies to those who qualify this year. I don't qualify because I received my state pension 2 years ago so I only get £143 p.w.

[Hypognosis]

@VHG

//So £67,000 is not a huge salary by today's standards.//

Yes it is. The *median* (UK) is hovering around the £26,000 mark and how do you imagine that kind of average can be dragged so low when the upper tail extends into the millions per annum?

In Civil Service, 10 years ago, £25k was a team-leader's salary. Non-contributory pension back then; private sector would need to pay ~15% higher for parity of take home pay.

Civil Servants now have to pay pension contributions, just like the outside world but DID NOT get a corresponding pay rise, to pay for it.

MP's salary is, in fact, tied to that of Civil Service Grade 1s; departmental heads where the number of staff under them could be in the tens of thousands.

So, what does a £55k I.T. person do, in comparison to that level of responsibility?

[Peter Pedant]

great post Hypo
I always wondered where they got it from

Ian Kennedy Hahaha hammer of the doctors and now pussy cat to the MPs - sorry I mean head of IPSA well he knows who his masters are .....

and in my fevered sleep last night
I recollected after Harold Wilson was swept to power in 1964 with a majority of two the firrst things they did was vote a 33 pay increase for themselves ( to £4k I think )


Oh dear after Hypos cerebral contribution - totally unexpected after the OP's headline - Greedy bar stweard s take the orf to the Tower !

I cant say:

George has said that supplied of champagne and caviar will be preserved in these days of autsterity for his old Etoniam chums

well I have now
but spot the mistake - George is Shrewsbury and not Eton
never mind

[Peter Pedant]

hypo - I thought £26 k was the arithmetic mean
but you say it is median ? ( 50% above and 50% below ) ?

[Peter Pedant]

// Our debt is about 95% of our GDP, we cant carry on like this. //

well we can if interest rates are 0.5%

also to crib off maggie thatcher - if we entertain 100% mortgages then thre is nothing wrong with national debt being 100% of GDP

[fiction-factory]

Are you implying the MPs pay rise wouldn't be going ahead if Labour had formed the government last May and Jon McDonnell had become Chancellor?
The decision was taken out of MPs' hands some time ago- they are set independently.
How many MPs from all parties will refuse to accept the 1.3% increase I wonder?

[Hypognosis]

@peter_pedant

Thanks.

The figure oft-quoted on the BBC is, I gather, the median (hence my emphasis), as supplied by ONS.

I can't read Excel sheets on this phone but, for everyone else

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax

(free-to-use Excel reader software can be obtained from Microsoft, if anyone wants to avoid the full product).


@fiction-factory

you say: independently

I say: by the old-boys' network

There's a lot of it about: The other week, a UK university head was in the news after comparing his role to that of corporate CEOs, as a justification for an obscene salary hike that he'd awarded himself. (Radio 4; I'm still hunting for an article I can post a link to).

[aelmpvw]

//So £67,000 is not a huge salary by today's standards.//

considering that many mps have two jobs it's not bad for a part time post