I don't believe it!!

Like many people I suspect, I have been rather irked this week by the goings on regarding the salaries and allowances of our elected representatives. Ok some of them have a relatively short employment span but those that actually do any good seem to be elected over and over again along with those who are in the so called safe seats , and they more or less have jobs for life. There are some constituencies where a goat would be electable as long as it wore a blue rosette, and frankly perhaps a goat would give better value for money. Many of these MPs have second and third jobs as well as investment portfolios and country mansions, and yet they are still griping about their salaries and allowances. It has been said that to award themselves a pay rise is political suicide, and so they have been quietly raising their allowances until their incomes have soared in real terms while the rest of us have seen a steady decline .

The basic rate of pay for a backbench MP is near as dammit 60,000 pounds, which must be about a million Canadian dollars, and many people with part time jobs would probably be delighted to earn that, but on top of that, most MPs can claim for second homes, heating allowances, travel – often first class, salaries for staff, and those can be members of the family, porn movies, entertainment, goat food and more or less anything that they can get a receipt for. So how do the poor dears manage? I guess that they stick the measly 60,000 into Swiss bank account and live on their allowances as long as parliament is in session.

Watching debates in the Commons can be quite revealing. Our representatives are more likely than not to be absent, and a representative few are present to keep the numbers looking reasonable and to make sure that the other side doesn’t go unchallenged. Where are the rest??? Surely they are not in their constituencies, or if they are perhaps they are refurbishing their homes at the tax payer’s expense.

In my opinion, the public have lost faith in politicians and in party politics particularly. There seems to be little difference between the parties anyway and it is time that people could vote for the candidate that best represents them regardless of which particular dogma they subscribe to. That way the country would certainly get a representative government.

There is a downside to this though. With the ever growing population of ethnic groups, it would not be too many years before they have a majority in the house and even a Muslim Prime minister. Then we’d have Sharia law introduced and we’d plunge back into the middle ages. Perhaps that would be a good thing, at least then we’d really have something to complain about – but only very quietly!