Time to get real!

I was very shocked to learn the extent to which some MPs have to go to daily in order to perform their elected duties. Cutting out, curbing and not allowing luxuries is one thing but being forced to sleep the night in the office because they are unable [financially] to rent a room during the week, is a different thing altogether.

Some will say “but they are paid enough” yes, to do the job.

Most of us get time and half for over time or bounces at the end of the year or take time in lieu for the extra hours we put in or work form home…. the list is long, and most good employers meet their employees half way to benefit both sides!

Watching Andrew Neil last week, on This Week, lay on Diane Abbott for taking cabs home [when she worked late] made me cringe.

But it also made me ask, when did we become that nation? Is it the expenses? We all know in every barrel there are good apples just as there are bad ones. And we only throw out the bad apples, which we did. This parliament has the highest number of new intakes as a result of it. But somehow it seems over night the lines between the reasonable and the bizarre have been bleared so much that now we don’t know what’s what any more.

Yes, the days of excess and lack of spending control are thankfully over, and yes, our MPs should respect the rules and obeyed by them. But the rules must also obeyed by reason and follow logic. How can we expect the people who speak and legislate on our behalf do the job we elected them to do if they are sleeping on their office floor during the week. Where is the logic in that?

Maybe we should go a little further and treat being an MP just as we treat any other job, give it a set number of hours per week, and even go as far as making MPs clock in [that ought to make some people very happy] daily.

However, that will mean members of parliament can ONLY work five days a week, and take eight weeks holiday every year [that will probably be less than what they take now – but then I am sure working five days week will trump that].