Monday, 1 July 2013

Compare and contrast

From The Evening Standard, 26 June 2013:

Mr Osborne slammed the brakes on public sector pay and set in train an estimated 144,000 job losses. Public sector pay rises will  be held below inflation at one percent, while generous automatic pay rises scrapped.

From the BBC, 1 July 2013:

David Cameron has been warned he will not be able to block plans for a big pay rise for MPs, the BBC understands. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is expected to say backbench MPs' £66,000 salaries should increase to more than £70,000 from the election.

1 comments:

Tim Almond said...

The simple answer is to scrap the independent method and replace it with each candidate putting his total annual price on the ballot paper, paid by the constituents.

It would achieve the following:-

1. We would find out how much people really value their MPs.

2. We could price according to risk (someone in a marginal is more likely to have to put in more work to get the job).

3. It would engage the public with the real cost of things (so, not just salaries but all the other costs).

4. it would encourage MPs to find efficiency savings.