HanoiVillan Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 1 hour ago, wazzap24 said: Exactly! They get a basic salary of £70k which involves so little actual 'work' that they can earn the same again and more via secondary 'employment'. I'd actually support them being paid considerably more if they did a full time job of it and were blocked from having additional employment/income. I do agree with this. Two things can be true at the same time: that £77k isn't 'a pittance', and also that they should be paid more, in exchange for tighter rules on expenses and outside employment/funding. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 3 hours ago, Xela said: I don't go without, i'm not some miser! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 Quote The Labour party is demanding an inquiry into GCSE reforms in England that it says are putting state school pupils at a disadvantage by forcing them to sit harder exams than students in the private sector. The Department for Education describes the reformed GCSEs, which started to be introduced last year, as “gold standard”. But official figures show that many independent schools are opting for internationally recognised GCSEs (IGCSEs), which are being phased out of state schools at the behest of the government because it considers them less robust. The consequence, according to critics, is that private school pupils are being afforded an advantage over state school students in the race for university places. Grauniad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 6 hours ago, Chindie said: Calling an MPs salary a relative pittance is so far from reality as to be in another dimension. It’s not, it really just means you lack the intelligence to understand the use of ‘relative’ in this context. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chindie Posted December 31, 2018 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted December 31, 2018 19 minutes ago, Risso said: It’s not, it really just means you lack the intelligence to understand the use of ‘relative’ in this context. Oh I know full well what you're getting it. It's the same thing Davkaus hinted at, that an MPs salary is towards the bottom end of equivalent stature roles in other fields. It's just there's not a planet where the word 'pittance', be it relative or not, can be used to refer to an MPs basic salary. £70k a year would put you firmly in the top 10% of earners on the planet. If not higher. That isn't a pittance, 'relative' or not. It would be far more accurate, and less galling to many, to say a really quite wealthy person might be even more wealthy if they weren't a politician. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumstopdogs Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 (edited) From the independent last year: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/70000-john-mcdonnell-salary-hmrc-rich-top-5-percent-denial-a7697561.html Quote The most recent data from HMRC shows that the median average pre-tax income is around £22,400. An income of over £70,000 a year will actually put you in the top five per cent of all UK earners Edit: 2 years old now! Edited January 1, 2019 by Brumstopdogs 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 On 01/01/2019 at 00:07, Risso said: It’s not, it really just means you lack the intelligence to understand the use of ‘relative’ in this context. Called out for your warped perspective, resort to personal attacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 He's such a dogwhistling cock 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 2, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted January 2, 2019 He's feathering his nest for a leadership bid in the near future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 The kind of language the Tories are increasingly using is the kind of bile you'd have expected UKIP to be spewing a couple of years ago. The Tories have certainly shifted further to the right. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted January 2, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted January 2, 2019 On 31/12/2018 at 23:07, Risso said: It’s not, it really just means you lack the intelligence to understand the use of ‘relative’ in this context. There are two contexts, aren't there. There' the one of "relative to what I could be earning if I was doing something other than being an MP and voting the way I'm told to by the whips and just keeping my head down" and there's "relative to what millions of other people earn". Perhaps he could be earning more, though I have my doubts, but either way, it's fairly insensitive. On the plus side, he appears to have (through personal experience) been enlightened as to the folly of something he voted for when he had no understanding of how unfair what he voted for was. So though there's some schadenfreude, there's also at least a partial awareness that actually he is and was a lot better off than many others faced with the court case issue. Which is what makes his "relative" statement a bit out of place. The awareness of his (good) fortune is less than comprehensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 What a worm Chris Grayling is. Just blamed rail fare increases on unions for demanding pay rises for rail workers. F all to do with ensuring profits are maintained then despite providing a diabolical service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 2, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 2, 2019 4 minutes ago, markavfc40 said: What a worm Chris Grayling is. Just blamed rail fare increases on unions for demanding pay rises for rail workers. F all to do with ensuring profits are maintained then despite providing a diabolical service. At least two of the major strike actions last year were over single man working i.e. a safety issue not wages (Merseyrail and Southern). I'll also wager Northern cancelled more trains than were lost to the Saturday Strike actions 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 Further to the topic of trains: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 4 hours ago, StefanAVFC said: He's such a dogwhistling cock "Refugees, sir. Nearly half a dozen of them" 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 1 hour ago, bickster said: At least two of the major strike actions last year were over single man working i.e. a safety issue not wages (Merseyrail and Southern). I'll also wager Northern cancelled more trains than were lost to the Saturday Strike actions Funny how those safety issues were resolved with 28% pay rises over 5 years in 2017 when they also striked over “safety issues “ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 2, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 2, 2019 46 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: Funny how those safety issues were resolved with 28% pay rises over 5 years in 2017 when they also striked over “safety issues “ Not on Merseyrail they weren't. The Merseyrail dispute never asked for a penny payrise, they just wanted guards retained on the new trains coming in. The strike ended when Merseyrail agreed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 Govia Thameslink, owners of Southern, also agreed to roster a second safety trained member of staff on journeys in their agreement with the unions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 3 hours ago, blandy said: There are two contexts, aren't there. There' the one of "relative to what I could be earning if I was doing something other than being an MP and voting the way I'm told to by the whips and just keeping my head down" and there's "relative to what millions of other people earn". Perhaps he could be earning more, though I have my doubts, but either way, it's fairly insensitive. Er no, that makes no sense whatsoever I'm afraid. My point was that MPs earn less than a lot of other people in the private and public sector. So their pay wouldn't be considered a 'pittance' compared to somebody who earns less than them, that would just be a completely illogical argument. But compared to a lot of private sector chief executives and public sector workers like council bosses, their pay is much lower. I saw in a local rag recently that the chief execs of councils such as Daventry earn about £170,000 pa. I think I also read that the recently departed boss of Sunderland council was on about £600,000. (I'm making no judgement on the justification or otherwise of those salaries) Whether they earn a multiple of the average national salary or not wasn't the point I was making. You could make the same point about a Premier League footballer on £10K a week being on a relative pittance compared to somebody like Raheem Sterling on £300,000. It isn't a pittance by any normal measure, but relatively it's a lot less than people in the same industry. Apologies if that's 'insensitive' or a 'warped view'. I expect somebody like Stefan will be along shortly to put me right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 1 hour ago, Risso said: Er no, that makes no sense whatsoever I'm afraid. My point was that MPs earn less than a lot of other people in the private and public sector. So their pay wouldn't be considered a 'pittance' compared to somebody who earns less than them, that would just be a completely illogical argument. But compared to a lot of private sector chief executives and public sector workers like council bosses, their pay is much lower. I saw in a local rag recently that the chief execs of councils such as Daventry earn about £170,000 pa. I think I also read that the recently departed boss of Sunderland council was on about £600,000. (I'm making no judgement on the justification or otherwise of those salaries) Whether they earn a multiple of the average national salary or not wasn't the point I was making. You could make the same point about a Premier League footballer on £10K a week being on a relative pittance compared to somebody like Raheem Sterling on £300,000. It isn't a pittance by any normal measure, but relatively it's a lot less than people in the same industry. Why are you comparing an MP to a cheif executive of a private company or local council? I don't see that the roles are comparable and that if they weren"t MP's they"d be capable of carrying out such a job. Your footballer analogy would work better if you compared what an MP earns to say a local concillor who earns around 20k, a local council cabinet member on 40k or Council leader on 60k. An MP on 75k then certainly wouldn't be earning a relative pittance. Quite the opposite. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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