Thank you Gail Stacy you made me chuckle.

Posted 2 Feb 2012 by Walaa Idris

When the e- petition was first introduced, we all expected to see a few bizarre requests. That is one of the beauties of democracy – every voice is heard and valued. What people then do with what they hear, of course within the law, is their civil right.

So, when this morning my Twitter timeline showed a retweet (RT) by House of Twits for an e-petition asking for MPs’ salaries to be capped at £26,000 in line with the ‘average’ UK wage, because the government is ’insisting’ that there should be a cap on benefits! I could not stop myself laughing!

If we agreed with Gail Stacy, the person who created the petition, that MPs work is average – which most definitely isn’t. With the exception of those members who represent London and the surrounding areas, how are MPs going to run two households on 26K? And although this petition is prove of the entitlement culture that has lately plagued our nation. It also shows a lack of proportionality and a realistic comprehension of issues and serious matters, such as commerce, responsibilities and rights.

Alas, Stacy failed to see the vast difference between working for the public and supported by the public. In one you get paid for doing a job which you are expected to do well and honorably – but the other is an aid, an assistance from the state.

How on earth did we get to this!?

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20 comment(s)

P diddy

P diddy
3 Feb, 21:31

Miss you are a fool.If the cleaner didnt wipe your ass you would be incapable of doing anything..Everybody is important..
You my dear are a deluded brainwashed butt monkey.

Gail Stacey

Gail Stacey
3 Feb, 21:47

Thank you equally for the laugh! I have spent half of my life actively opposing the Tories and capitalism, but I never expected to be featured on one of the ‘Top 50 Right Wing Blogs’, with a correctly spelt name or otherwise.

You forgot to add a link to the petition, so here it is.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/28476

Smiles,

Gail Stacey.

walaa

walaa
3 Feb, 21:54

Dear Gail Stacey,

Thank you for the link and apologies for misspelling your name.

And all the best

Walaa

P diddy

P diddy
3 Feb, 22:02

“the beauties of democracy – every voice is heard and valued”
Ha ha ha in your dreams lady…

“MPs work is average, which most definitely isn’t”

No filling in bogus tax returns is a bit of a struggle.So to lying through your teeth..My heart bleeds for these people.

Gordon

Gordon
3 Feb, 22:31

I would not employ you. My 8 year old son’s grammar and spelling is better than yours.

I hope you ‘speak’ better than you ‘blog’.

Idiot.

Abu Hamster

Abu Hamster
3 Feb, 23:49

Hi all I would just like to add my two pennies here (i paid tax on them 26 times)

I hate self serving politicians who ever they represent. In short until the politicians can be seen to be acting for their constituents first and not lining their own pockets or their friends pockets why not restrict their wages. They are all on the rob anyway.

Am fed up of reading about cuts to public services whilst wine cellars are filled the flat at 11 is renovated, ex PMs avoid tax by saying profit was admin, directors of failing businesses taking huge bonuses whilst we bail them out, that the guy in charge of student loans fraudulently pays no tax yet screws over the young with tuition fees blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda.

i HATE SELF SERVING IDIOTS and we are just seeing the tip of the sodding iceberg!

Good work Gail

Dave Plummer

Dave Plummer
4 Feb, 10:38

Walaa,

I believe you have spectacularly missed the point of the petition. I think the point is that the £26k benefit cap is a nonsense. The petition is a means of raising awareness of that fact.

Most folk on benefits are on benefits temporarily, between jobs (assumuming there are any left after the Tory public sector cull.) Your policy would see many thrown out of their homes.

After a day’s work I spend about four hours a day of my own time involved in trade union and campaigning activity, supporting members and fighting the Government to try to protect jobs, the NHS, welfare etc. I’m on £21k. What on earth makes you think you’re more deserving of an above average income than I am?

Peter Davies

Peter Davies
4 Feb, 10:45

The thing that made me chuckle here is that something as poorly thought out and illiterate as this gets into the top 50 right wing or conservative blogs. But then …

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2095549/Right-wingers-intelligent-left-wingers-says-controversial-study—conservative-politics-lead-people-racist.html

walaa

walaa
4 Feb, 10:50

Err Dave, I think it’s you who missed the point! Benefit is not only paid for out of work people, there are many employed folks on Housing, Child, Working Tax benefits …..,

By the way I’m not an MP – but I assume you knew that, didn’t you

Rick Dutton

Rick Dutton
4 Feb, 10:54

Hold on…when three quarters of the Tory cabinet are millionaires from private means…why do we pay them at all?

Dave Plummer

Dave Plummer
4 Feb, 10:58

Sorry Walaa, I didn’t know you’re not an MP.

I do know that many, many benefit claimants are employed, something the Coalition wants to exacerbate by driving down wages. .
It’s an odd way to go about cutting the benefit bill.

Gail Stacey

Gail Stacey
4 Feb, 11:08

Thank you for the apology.

Let’s not forget who the people being hit the hardest by these caps are!

Those with, and caring for, disabilities and those bringing up the system’s future rats on the wheel in over-priced areas.

Lower salaries would inevitably encourage those who would currently feel morally and principally compromised to enter mainstream politics. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that, as salaries and perks have risen, working class, grassroots political representation has diminished.

£26,000 is an average income? That’s around £35,000 before deductions. I don’t know anyone who earns that, neither do I know anyone who couldn’t manage comfortably on it. If the Bank of England’s inflation index had been applied to MPs, then £35,000 is what they would be receiving.

As Dave pointed out, this is about making a point. We’re all in this together. Not.

Wendy Turner

Wendy Turner
4 Feb, 11:18

Walaa dear, you seem to be purposely missing the point ( or am I too generous in my assumption that you understand it).
Working people in receipt of benefits are not facing any caps. It seems the govt is happy to subsidise businesses who don’t pay a living wage (thereby increasing their profits for shareholders at the cost of the taxpayer), but not to support people sacrificed at the altar of deficit reduction. Ditto, the govt is happy to demonise and humiliate the poor, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed in order to save a few pennies, yet the real scroungers, the tax avoiders and evaders, who steal from all of us in order to line their Savile Row pockets are allowed to carry on. Indeed they are invited into government.
Nobody has ever asked me my opinion, so I’ll give it freely here; I am happy to pay for a Welfare State that supports those who are unable to support themselves. I’ll even accept a level of fraud if it allows the majority to enjoy a little dignity in life. What I don’t accept is is an elite who all have their noses in the trough stealing from the rest of us. I don’t accept a govt. who will cap the income of the poorest, but won’t do anything to control rents. Or those like IDS who scream at the cost of benefits while claiming thousands of pounds from the state.
Yes, cap the wages of MPs; stop their obscene expenses and let them live under the same constrainsts that we do. Maybe then they will understand what life in Austerity Britain is really like. It’s not bloody Nottinghill Hill or Four Weddings. Real people are broke and cross and sick of the thievery of the rich from the poor..

Mandyque

Mandyque
4 Feb, 11:49

I also think that you miss the entire point that Gail is making by starting this petition. MPs are very well off, are very generously paid, and most certainly do not experience the effects of poverty and not being able to provide for your family on very little.

This is not just about those who are ‘scrounging benefits’, this is about the people who are using the state’s ‘safety net’ to survive while they attempt, under massive pressure, to get one of the few jobs which are available. This is also about those who are on low incomes, after being ‘lucky’ enough to snag one of those rare jobs, and are struggling to take care of their families and keep a roof over their heads.

This is also about those who can not work. These people have severe disabilities, are most certainly NOT faking to claim benefits, and need our love and care 24 hours a day. DLA is there to give them some semblance of a quality of life. My own daughter is severely disabled, but with the right education, therapies and care, she is learning to do the things which we take for granted. With the little extra money that her DLA provides, she is able to have some quality in her life, being able to go out and do the sorts of things we take for granted because we don’t need extra support to do them.

But I digress, back to the subject in hand, I believe that Gail’s point is that we would like to see MPs survive on a relatively low income, so that they have more empathy with the people they are meant to represent, because at the moment we do not feel represented by anyone in government.

Abu Hamster

Abu Hamster
4 Feb, 12:19

It is now my ambition to be in the top 50 Conservative Blog list. I am guessing there are about 50 at the moment as the rest are finding ways on to the tax avoidance bandwagon…..

Edward Green

Edward Green
4 Feb, 12:56

The comments here are fascinating and it helps tremendously for a Conservative blogger to see how a lot of people with a different ideology think.

I think that the petition will be popular and get a lot of names on it but it will not get any momentum to make MPs reduce their earnings. I think it would be damaging to force such a thing because it would be a disincentive for talented people to try to become MPs. Whether one is in a “white collar” profession, industry or the upper echelons of the trades unions, I doubt many of them would want to do a job with often longer hours for a fraction of their earnings, especially if they were to have constituencies outside London and need two homes.

It would be wonderful if everyone could be capped at £26K nett. That doesn’t take into account the fact that one can live jolly nicely in Lincolnshire for that but still struggle in London and the South East. It would be even more wonderful to expect the best and the brightest people, regardless of their politics and ideologies, and not have to pay very much for them.

It would be nice if premiership football players were also capped at this. For all the hatred of bankers, it puzzles me why nobody ever criticises the pay of football stars, especially those who are known as much for off-field antics as their football. Bankers with huge salaries and bonuses still don’t get as much as premiership footballers on the whole. I know that some bankers caused a lot of the problems we now face, but others didn’t. Some banks are owned by us to an extent, but some are not.

It certainly galls me to know that some of the worst tax avoiders are premiership footballers. They take part of their earning as payments to “image rights companies” to avoid tax that they certainly don’t need to avoid.

I don’t necessarily condone the avoidance of Sir Philip Green and Lord Ashcroft, but at least the tax they avoid is still reinvested into more business which generates further tax to some extent. Indeed, when industry and services are concerned like with Sir Philip Green it also reduces the likelihood of British companies going into foreign hands and being asset stripped! It can actually help keep and make more British jobs for British people.

What does footballers “image rights” tax avoidance pay for? Roasting slappers and super injunctions? How does that help society?

robertjags

robertjags
4 Feb, 16:59

Running two households on £26k?

Does the taxpayer not fund the purchases for that second house?

Does the taxpayer not pay the mortgage on that second house?

Does the taxpayer not buy the food (up to £400 per week) for that second house?

Civil servants get £26 per night and a room in a cheap hotel when away on business – why should it be any different for MPs?

P diddy

P diddy
4 Feb, 17:12

Walaa

Yes thats right anyone that disagrees with you is attacking you…Poor poor you…Now what do you mean “the entitlement culture” ?
Or are you just trying to spread hate?

Paul Gardner

Paul Gardner
5 Feb, 14:13

@Edward Green, if it’s any consolation, I feel the same way as you do about footballers’ obscene levels of pay. I am equally mystified by the pay of Formula 1 drivers – yes, they are highly skilled, but so are RAF fighter jet pilots and they get around £35,000. Lewis Hamilton gets £13 million a year but I really don’t see that his job is 3,700 times more skilled or more important than the fighter pilot’s.

Your argument about the “disincentive” for “talented people” to become MPs is identical to the special pleading used to justify the salaries and bonuses of top bankers and corporate CEOs.

It’s interesting that you use this justification, as I would say it reflects exactly what has gone wrong with our political system.

You can use the “greed is good” mantra to justify corporate excess if you really must, and we can agree to disagree on that. But I really don’t see how the interests of the people are served by self-seeking parasites interested only in filling their own boots. I’m with Douglas Adams on this one: “It is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.”

So yes, let’s make politics less attractive to self-styled “talented people” who are only in it for themselves rather than serving the community. THAT’S HOW IT SHOULD BE!

Paul Gardner

Paul Gardner
8 Feb, 09:32

Oops, I managed to add an extra nought in the ratio of Lewis Hamilton’s salary to an RAF pilot’s. He “only” earns around 370 times as much, of course.

Can I have a bonus now? ;)

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