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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2024 20:38:42 GMT
I think we might insist people turn out, but stop short of making them vote. Who would you vote for at this time if you were a traditional Tory voter. Isn’t the problem that the Tories have turned into this Right Wing Empire Loyalist throwback party that wants nothing more than to line their own pockets, keep workers in their place and be beholden for any crumb that can be thrown their way? My vote now goes to whoever gets this current throw-back administration out of office. But my real hope that one or two parliamentary sessions in opposition will encourage the Tories to rediscover real One Nation Conservatism that strives for good health, high employment, good housing, good pay, good education — all allowing the individual to benefit from their own efforts, while supporting those whose unfortunate circumstances cause them hardship. I am not an advocate for the Corbyn populist guilt-ridden doctrine of pressing everyone down to the lowest common level… I agree with most of that though your last sentence is a gross misrepresentation of what we in the party under him were about. It was nothing about guilt and nothing about reducing everyone to poverty, but everything about a better deal for the struggling millions. Though your misrepresentation is probably one you actually believe in yourself. |
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Steve
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Post by Steve on May 6, 2024 0:49:09 GMT
I don’t see your problem. Anyone doing a job that allows enough time to do their constituency and parliamentary work should be allowed to stand. So too should anyone who fulfils all the requirements that the Electoral Commission and/or their party sets. I don’t see a time when MPs are only billionaires or benefit street residents… Being an MP should be a full time job, so MPs should not be spending time working for anyone else. If that means paying them a bit more then so be it, though the kind of people who think an MP's salary is peanuts are over-represented in there already. We need rather more everyday people in there, most of whom would regard the current salary plus expenses as very generous. The kind of people we need as MPs are the kind of people who are there for the right reasons and not to further their careers or line their own pockets. People who believe in something and want to make this country a better place and make things better for our people. That 'a bit more' might be £500k a year |
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2024 1:39:21 GMT
Being an MP should be a full time job, so MPs should not be spending time working for anyone else. If that means paying them a bit more then so be it, though the kind of people who think an MP's salary is peanuts are over-represented in there already. We need rather more everyday people in there, most of whom would regard the current salary plus expenses as very generous. The kind of people we need as MPs are the kind of people who are there for the right reasons and not to further their careers or line their own pockets. People who believe in something and want to make this country a better place and make things better for our people. That 'a bit more' might be £500k a year That would be a big mistake. We need people going into the role for the right reasons, not for the money. We need people who want to be there for us. £100K plus expenses is more than enough to live comfortably for those interested in serving us. We should be encouraging people who want to serve, not attracting self serving money grabbers. Besides which, if we the taxpayer were to start shelling out an extra £400k to each of over 600 MPs, that would be an extra quarter of a billion quid in increased MP salaries alone. That would be regarded as outrageous by the public at large, and is the sort of money that could train a lot of doctors, nurses, teachers or police men and women. And would represent an average added cost to every adult of about £60 a year, just to fund a more than five fold increase in MP's pay. When most of us need that money a lot more than they do. As an idea that the public will accept, that's right up there with abolishing all taxes on millionaires or declaring war on China, lol |
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Post by Zany on May 6, 2024 6:30:22 GMT
Being an MP should be a full time job, so MPs should not be spending time working for anyone else. If that means paying them a bit more then so be it, though the kind of people who think an MP's salary is peanuts are over-represented in there already. We need rather more everyday people in there, most of whom would regard the current salary plus expenses as very generous. The kind of people we need as MPs are the kind of people who are there for the right reasons and not to further their careers or line their own pockets. People who believe in something and want to make this country a better place and make things better for our people. That 'a bit more' might be £500k a year What do you base that figure on? |
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Steve
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Post by Steve on May 6, 2024 10:18:36 GMT
What a top performing solicitor might earn.
We don't need well meaning but naive inadequates in our Parliament, we those that can see all the consequences of potential actions, can weigh up the best/least worst options and can articulate this clearly and succinctly. Suck people can easily earn really big salaries outside parliament and are smart enough not to take on the grief without fair reward
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2024 12:51:46 GMT
What a top performing solicitor might earn. We don't need well meaning but naive inadequates in our Parliament, we those that can see all the consequences of potential actions, can weigh up the best/least worst options and can articulate this clearly and succinctly. Suck people can easily earn really big salaries outside parliament and are smart enough not to take on the grief without fair reward No one is suggesting inadequates and your implied assumption that anyone who is not a high earner is inadequate is offensive to all intelligent people. It is up to the parties to select adequate people and there is never a shortage of wannabe candidates. What we need is adequate people from all walks of life, not just high earning sectors who are over-represented already. £100k is plenty for most people. And who do you want to pay the extra quarter of a billion quid which would be necessary to pay them so much? Money desperately needed elsewhere? And how on earth do you think the public would react? If your goal is to trigger a mass uprising whilst further confirming the already widespread assumption that they are all in it for themselves, then it's the ideal policy. Otherwise not. |
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Post by patman post on May 6, 2024 12:52:34 GMT
Isn’t the problem that the Tories have turned into this Right Wing Empire Loyalist throwback party that wants nothing more than to line their own pockets, keep workers in their place and be beholden for any crumb that can be thrown their way? My vote now goes to whoever gets this current throw-back administration out of office. But my real hope that one or two parliamentary sessions in opposition will encourage the Tories to rediscover real One Nation Conservatism that strives for good health, high employment, good housing, good pay, good education — all allowing the individual to benefit from their own efforts, while supporting those whose unfortunate circumstances cause them hardship. I am not an advocate for the Corbyn populist guilt-ridden doctrine of pressing everyone down to the lowest common level… I agree with most of that though your last sentence is a gross misrepresentation of what we in the party under him were about. It was nothing about guilt and nothing about reducing everyone to poverty, but everything about a better deal for the struggling millions. Though your misrepresentation is probably one you actually believe in yourself. I admit that condensing into one sentence my antipathy to Labour's more extreme past dalliances with socialism did prove difficult.
My distrust of rabid socialism comes from its apparent dislike of the individual and the nurturing of personal ability and achievement. The most obvious example is comprehensive education, where equality mostly turns out to be levelling down at the expense of encouraging the most able. Corbyn was a student activist who hadn't grown up — perhaps good to have as an irritant, but a disastrous leader.
The socialist objective is that all production and distribution decisions should be made by "The Collective", directed by a central planner or government body — even worker cooperatives become a form of socialized production. So, again, no room for the individual or innovative entrepreneur!
In socialism individuals are aggressively collectivised to rely on the state for everything from food to healthcare — and the state determines the output and price of all these.
My preference is for a mixed economy — perhaps edging towards the Scandinavian and Nordic models — that ensures the essentials are available, but allows individuals to develop and prosper...
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Steve
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Post by Steve on May 6, 2024 12:58:04 GMT
What a top performing solicitor might earn. We don't need well meaning but naive inadequates in our Parliament, we those that can see all the consequences of potential actions, can weigh up the best/least worst options and can articulate this clearly and succinctly. Suck people can easily earn really big salaries outside parliament and are smart enough not to take on the grief without fair reward No one is suggesting inadequates and your implied assumption that anyone who is not a high earner is inadequate is offensive to all intelligent people. It is up to the parties to select adequate people and there is never a shortage of wannabe candidates. What we need is adequate people from all walks of life, not just high earning sectors who are over-represented already. £100k is plenty for most people. And who do you want to pay the extra quarter of a billion quid which would be necessary to pay them so much? Money desperately needed elsewhere? And how on earth do you think the public would react? If your goal is to trigger a mass uprising whilst further confirming the already widespread assumption that they are all in it for themselves, then it's the ideal policy. Otherwise not. You are presuming I said things I did not say and getting needlessly angry about such. I am OK with MPs having second roles (subject to obvious contraints) so there would be no need to pay that £500k or half a billion. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2024 13:11:01 GMT
I agree with most of that though your last sentence is a gross misrepresentation of what we in the party under him were about. It was nothing about guilt and nothing about reducing everyone to poverty, but everything about a better deal for the struggling millions. Though your misrepresentation is probably one you actually believe in yourself. I admit that condensing into one sentence my antipathy to Labour's more extreme past dalliances with socialism did prove difficult.
My distrust of rabid socialism comes from its apparent dislike of the individual and the nurturing of personal ability and achievement. The most obvious example is comprehensive education, where equality mostly turns out to be levelling down at the expense of encouraging the most able. Corbyn was a student activist who hadn't grown up — perhaps good to have as an irritant, but a disastrous leader.
The socialist objective is that all production and distribution decisions should be made by "The Collective", directed by a central planner or government body — even worker cooperatives become a form of socialized production. So, again, no room for the individual or innovative entrepreneur!
In socialism individuals are aggressively collectivised to rely on the state for everything from food to healthcare — and the state determines the output and price of all these.
My preference is for a mixed economy — perhaps edging towards the Scandinavian and Nordic models — that ensures the essentials are available, but allows individuals to develop and prosper...
I agree that as a leader Corbyn had many faults. His heart was in the right place most of the time but of course that alone is not enough. But you are seeing a supposedly rabid socialism where there was none. Yes we had a few hard core socialists in the party, but most of us - whether we called ourselves socialists or social democrats - were pretty moderate and anything but rabid. I for example believed in the policies in the 2017 manifesto which 30 years ago would have been regarded as a moderately social democratic set of policies. This is not the place for a policy by policy debate about that manifesto which has been done umpteen times elsewhere. Unless you insist of course. None of us favoured abolition of a mixed economy - I myself have long favoured something similar to the Nordic model though one adapted to our own nation's specific needs - and we certainly did not want to collectivise the food supply or indeed most other things. We did and still do support the NHS and state education of course but then so do the majority of the people. There were no plans to abolish private healthcare or private education. We had every desire to see people prosper and do well and asked only that everyone pay a fair share of their taxes. Thats all. And far from collectivising the entire economy, we only wanted the essential utilities, railways and royal mail back under public ownership. Hardly socialism unleashed since these things have proven expensive failures in the private sector and are publicly owned in most other capitalist free enterprise nations. You are looking at moderates and imagining you are seeing Lenin and Trotsky. You are -quite possibly wilfully - misunderstanding people like me. Do I seriously strike you as rabid? lol |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2024 13:16:29 GMT
No one is suggesting inadequates and your implied assumption that anyone who is not a high earner is inadequate is offensive to all intelligent people. It is up to the parties to select adequate people and there is never a shortage of wannabe candidates. What we need is adequate people from all walks of life, not just high earning sectors who are over-represented already. £100k is plenty for most people. And who do you want to pay the extra quarter of a billion quid which would be necessary to pay them so much? Money desperately needed elsewhere? And how on earth do you think the public would react? If your goal is to trigger a mass uprising whilst further confirming the already widespread assumption that they are all in it for themselves, then it's the ideal policy. Otherwise not. You are presuming I said things I did not say and getting needlessly angry about such. I am OK with MPs having second roles (subject to obvious contraints) so there would be no need to pay that £500k or half a billion. There is neither a need for them to have second roles nor be paid half a million. The banning of the former does not result in a need for the latter. Most people willing to represent us could live comfortably on 100k plus expenses. And anyone who already earns much more than that will in many cases in later years have set aside more than enough to afford to become an MP without earning a vast sum, if his motivation is public service. Because that is what the motivation needs to be, not how much money they can make. Those motivated primarily by the latter consideration are not really the sort of MPs we need. |
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Post by Zany on May 6, 2024 18:03:11 GMT
What a top performing solicitor might earn. We don't need well meaning but naive inadequates in our Parliament, we those that can see all the consequences of potential actions, can weigh up the best/least worst options and can articulate this clearly and succinctly. Suck people can easily earn really big salaries outside parliament and are smart enough not to take on the grief without fair reward We need people who have worked up from nothing to success and go into politics to help others do the same. Rich people from rich families have no more idea than the young and naïve. |
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Steve
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Post by Steve on May 6, 2024 18:24:21 GMT
The reality is that people with the talent and application to be a good MP can and do earn much much higher in business. Try to limit MPs salaries and prevent them from taking on consultancy roles etc and we would inevitably weaken the MP talent pool. Not a sensible option
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Post by Zany on May 6, 2024 18:46:58 GMT
The reality is that people with the talent and application to be a good MP can and do earn much much higher in business. Try to limit MPs salaries and prevent them from taking on consultancy roles etc and we would inevitably weaken the MP talent pool. Not a sensible option Which is why it needs someone who wants to help rather than someone who wants to get richer. Not everyone sees money as their god and their Nirvana. |
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Steve
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Post by Steve on May 6, 2024 22:02:53 GMT
Parliament shouldn't rely on charity
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Post by Zany on May 7, 2024 6:46:25 GMT
Parliament shouldn't rely on charity A 91k salary is hardly charity. |
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