The 2015 General Election

[MakemineVanilla]

Pay and expenses for Straw and Rifkind:

 

Straw: 

 

Cost of running office - £155k 

Parliamentary costs - £8k

Pay - £66396

 

Outside financial interests (2014)

 

Newspaper articles 2 x £500

Speeches £7k

Consultancy at Ed & Man (environmental) £55-60k

Advance on book £29.4k

Journalism £3.8k

Trip and speech to Nigeria £10k fee + £5k expenses

Trip and speech in Turkey £4.6k + £2.3k

Turkish hospitality £2.6k

Turkish hospitality £1.5k

BBC Any Questions £150

 

 

Rifkind:

 

Cost of running office - £142k

Travel - £1188

Pay - £66396 + £3759 London living allowance

 

Outside financial interests (2014)

 

Continental Farmers Group £4580 a month

Adam Smith - £2916 a month

Unilever - £7166 a month

Alliance Medical Group - £5k a month

LEK advisory board - £12500 a quarter

Dragoman (Australia) A$12500 a quarter (for 4hrs work)

Speech LGT Bank £15k

Guardian article £285

Evening Standard £500

Speech University of Buckingham £1k

Trip to Morocco £2k

Stay in Munich £1k

Trip to Washington £3k

Edited February 24, 2015 by MakemineVanilla

[chrisp65]

Overlooked at work so cant supply links and get the details, but apparently the leader of the greens has given another stinker of an interview.

 

If it was the one on R4 this morning, yes, it was bad.

Asked about the Green Party ideas on wealth tax she had no grasp of any figures and wanted to give a speech about how the world is becoming transparent. When asked how they got to their £40billion to be raised figure - not a clue, other than something about Ferrari's counting towards your wealth, so I guess there would be some sort of national audit or census of peoples stuff? Then tried to give a repeat of the world is transparent speech, in case we missed it the first time.

Asked how the Green Party policy on reducing military spending, scrapping nukes and withdrawing from NATO would stop the Ruski's flying bombers up the English Channel she missed an absolute open goal. Her answer was something about knitting and compromise and being nicer to people.

 

Surely the answer was that being in NATO with nukes and troops all over the world doesn't appear to have stopped it so that's a flawed argument?

 

Perhaps she needs to adopt the 'big party' tactic. Send on a minion. They say stuff, if it goes down well, great! If it doesn't then the all seeing all knowing leader corrects it by press release later that day.

 

Not good in a knockabout live debate. Would probably give the best written answers in an exam where the questions were previously advised.

[lapal_fan]

FYI:

 

Straw total earnings = £193,746

 

Rifkind total earnings = £318,892

 

Paupers.

[chrisp65]

 

They mentioned on R4 earlier that Malcolm Rifkind works, by his calculation, 46 hours per week for other interests.

 

I guess, we as voters are responsible for voting these horrible greedy people in - and I'm not pointing at any one party here.

 

Austin Mitchell MP has suggested a paedo could be elected in his constituency as long as it was a Labour paedo. It's up to the people of Grimsby to react to that, I guess.

even though you only mentioned the Tory crook and not the Labour crook

 

 

 

aww come on now, they didn't give me any Jack Straw info to relay, so I tried to balance it up with an Austin Mitchell gaff.

You must know I'm not a Labour supporter.

[MakemineVanilla]

FYI:

 

Straw total earnings = £193,746

 

Rifkind total earnings = £318,892

 

Paupers.

 

 

Edited February 24, 2015 by MakemineVanilla

[Davkaus]

Natalie Bennett trying to avoid discussing her party's social housing policy.

 

This is the worst political interview I've heard since Ben Swain in The Thick of It. It's painful to listen to.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Davkaus

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Greens are doing their very best to sabotage themselves.

[MakemineVanilla]

Natalie Bennett trying to avoid discussing her party's social housing policy.

 

This is the worst political interview I've heard since Ben Swain in The Thick of It. It's painful to listen to.

 

It is a shame because the idea of withdrawing tax-relief from buy-to-let landlords' mortgages would be welcomed by most Lefties, and that won't be discussed now.

 

She has apologised but as it is at least her second car-crash of an interview, I think the Greens have to wonder if she's actually up to the job.

[omariqy]

I've met quite a few MPs through my profession and the vast majority of significant outside connections to companies.  Some that even the US would disapprove of.

[Rodders]

amazingly the US actually has a more transparent register of outside interests than the UK, which is pretty damning in and of itself. 

 

It's a bastard, you cannot prevent a human from talking to other humans, so even if you extend a ban on taking up connected private posts to a lifetime spell post government, they'll still find a way to influence policy - they'll have made enough connections, the money will go through a few more convoluted passages but it will still get there. 

 

The only half-effective thing you can do is demand total transparency, up front regarding any meetings you hold in public office or outside office with those who are in it. But then there will be lot's of private house parties on foreign soil etc, so hey ho, lah-di-dah. What to do , what to do. Killing the bastards seems rather extreme, and probably counter productive. 

[Condimentalist]

Natalie Bennett is definitely not up to the job which is a shame. I've never really understood how she got the gig. Caroline Lucas on the other hand is terrific. The Greens would be in a far better place if she were still in charge.

[tonyh29]

 

 

They mentioned on R4 earlier that Malcolm Rifkind works, by his calculation, 46 hours per week for other interests.

 

I guess, we as voters are responsible for voting these horrible greedy people in - and I'm not pointing at any one party here.

 

Austin Mitchell MP has suggested a paedo could be elected in his constituency as long as it was a Labour paedo. It's up to the people of Grimsby to react to that, I guess.

even though you only mentioned the Tory crook and not the Labour crook

 

 

 

aww come on now, they didn't give me any Jack Straw info to relay, so I tried to balance it up with an Austin Mitchell gaff.

You must know I'm not a Labour supporter.

 

yeah yeah I know everyone's an impartial neutral in this forum , they just impartially happen to  hate Tory's 

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

the tories are words removed tbf.

[MakemineVanilla]

amazingly the US actually has a more transparent register of outside interests than the UK, which is pretty damning in and of itself. 

 

It's a bastard, you cannot prevent a human from talking to other humans, so even if you extend a ban on taking up connected private posts to a lifetime spell post government, they'll still find a way to influence policy - they'll have made enough connections, the money will go through a few more convoluted passages but it will still get there. 

 

The only half-effective thing you can do is demand total transparency, up front regarding any meetings you hold in public office or outside office with those who are in it. But then there will be lot's of private house parties on foreign soil etc, so hey ho, lah-di-dah. What to do , what to do. Killing the bastards seems rather extreme, and probably counter productive. 

 

From Roy Jenkins' book The Chancellors, I gathered that there is an understanding that politicians should not seek to make money from their career in office until that career is over.

 

It even looks like the establishment and capitalist cronies have developed a system to reward politicians when they are out of office by setting up book deals, lecture tours and sinecures.

 

When you see how Blair has got rich, it just seems like those he benefited are paying for services rendered; just like Thatcher got her 'free' Barrett house after ditching the Parker-Morris standards etc.

 

When you look at Straw's and Rifkind's list of emoluments it is easy to see why one might be expected to lobby for Turkish membership of the EU and the other might lobby for reduced banking regulation and privatisation of the NHS. 

[Rodders]

Yep, nothing you can do to stop that. All we can push for is that as the laws are debated and influenced the electorate know exactly who is doing the lobbying and for what agenda, but I think pigs will fly before the details and motivations of those conversations are made available to us all. 

[tonyh29]

Natalie Bennett is definitely not up to the job which is a shame. I've never really understood how she got the gig. Caroline Lucas on the other hand is terrific. The Greens would be in a far better place if she were still in charge.

 

 as in  Caroline "taking your children on holiday to Spain is equivalent to stabbing someone in the street " Lucas

 

no doubt it was "taken out of context "  .. but she is as mad , bad and dangerous as the rest of them

[Condimentalist]

 

Natalie Bennett is definitely not up to the job which is a shame. I've never really understood how she got the gig. Caroline Lucas on the other hand is terrific. The Greens would be in a far better place if she were still in charge.

 

 as in  Caroline "taking your children on holiday to Spain is equivalent to stabbing someone in the street " Lucas

 

no doubt it was "taken out of context "  .. but she is as mad , bad and dangerous as the rest of them

 

 

You'll have to show me where she's said that Tony. I rather suspect it was taken out of context, if indeed that is a verbatim quote. 

 

As a Tory I don't expect you to agree with her policies, but she is absolutely a credible politician which to be frank Bennett is not. 

[chrisp65]

Its a reversal thing, the actual quote from Lucas would be, 'yes'. 

The question put to her was, 'is flying the kids to Spain on holiday as bad as stabbing someone in the street?'

 

Just google 'Caroline Lucas Spain holiday quote' and pick the newspaper that suits your  view of the world.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

if you stab them with a needle, lightly (like, more than a prick, but not quite a full on stab), and repeatedly do so over half a century, perhaps.

Edited February 24, 2015 by CarewsEyebrowDesigner

[Condimentalist]

 

I have it here:

 

LUCAS: One person’s freedom is undermining someone else’s freedom… I would think that even you would agree people can’t go round knifing people in the street.

CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: So is flying to Spain the same as knifing someone in the street?

LUCAS: Yes it is.  People are dying from climate change.  It’s very irresponsible.

 

Well, it's a bit of a daft comparison which has been made for effect. Putting the hyperbole aside, though, the point being made is that air travel is enormously polluting and contributes significantly to climate change, which in turn is having seriously detrimental effects on people's livelihoods. There's nothing remotely controversial about that. 

Edited February 24, 2015 by PatrickCousens