Mp's Underpaid?

On the Today programme today, March23rd, there seem to be a feeling that British MP's were not paid enough. Whilst they might well be paid less than a number of politicians in other countries surely we should be more rational. After all, they aren't going to rush off and do the job soemwhere else.

What is the job description, get elected seems to be the only requirement and if we are honest, they don't get elected, their party does. If they lose office they get get rather generous payments, if all redundancy schemes were as generous that might be fair.

But what do they have to do once they have the job, as far as I can tell they hjave to turn up once and be sworn in. Do they have to attend a place of work, meet targets, even live in their constituencies. Let us be honest there are no constraints on MP's, apart from breaking the law, I suppose. So let us be honest it is the cushiest job going, free housing, no bosses, no targets, work if you want to.

Perhaps they should have to pay to have the job?

The media and politicians

I was just thinking about why politicians jump at the request of the media to make daft statements about which they clearly know very little and haven't had a chance to think clearly about. The, what n the idea came to me that pundits and media experts are paid to give instant opinions, nobody really cares whether waht they say is true because if two days everyone has forgotten what they said. However politicians, especially those in power have to get things right. This is not always easy.

Consider the example of a plane crash, the reporters are always asking what caused the problem the "experts" come up with many and varied explanations, one of which might be right. However when they ask the real experts who have to examine the evidence they tend to say they don't know till they have examined all the evidence. What a serious and considered answer. However many politicians seem to think they know before doing this task of examining the evidence or at least waiting till their civil servants have done so.

Two recent examples come to mind, one was the outburst by David Milliband about the Russian activities in South Ossetia. He made an early pronouncement on the subject without being aware of any of the sensibilities that might be involved. You might think an English politician who is aware of the problems of Northern Ireland might think that problems are not always as easy as they might seem from a distance.

We have recently had Ed Balls and the Haringey saga. I have no idea what is the right answer but an initial
look at what happened seems to imply that he was hasty. He might be a speed reader, as might be his civil servants but given a long report there are often many odd words floating around that qualify somke of the statements, missing them can cause unwary managers to leap to the wrong conclusion. To sack someone without giving them a chance to defend themselves was stupid, though I am sure that all the pundits in the press were calling for blood. They however will not be sued for getting it wrong.

Remember H. L Mencken

"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat,
plausible, and wrong."

Davis Cameron's Apology?

Was it really an apology or just a piece of political maneuvering? He did not seem to get to grips with the real issues of the failure of the market, just some mealy mouthed words about admitting that tthey didn't spot what the banks were up to. Of course they didn't , why should they, the banks weren't going to tell them and they
were making nice big fat profits, apparently, so who is going to shout look out there is something wrong.


The whole of the media were conspiring to build up the myth, we can show you how to get a better deal, on your house , your finance, you name it it the press, the tele and the radio all played their part in adding to the bubble. It is always the same, and when the troubles start they are always surprised and continue to give advice, probably just as wrong as their previous advice.

No Mr Cameron and the rest of them, politicians and pundits have to come clean and admit that they really did not know what they were talking about.

An apology for Gordon Brown

It is clear that Gordon Brown will not apologise for his mistakes. In fact none of the polticians who have been in power for last few years are likely to apologise for their mistakes over the economy so I thought I would write one for them, it will do for most of them.

Dear Public,

I would like to say sorry for what has happened to the economy over the last 18 months or so. Something went wrong and some of the blame must fall on me. Naively I thought that all those clever people in the financial sector and in the banks and insurance companies were doing their best to make us all wealthier and better off. But I was wrong all these years, they were not using the super intellects to help us but themselves. They fooled many of us into believing that if we left them alone and didn't enquire to carefully it would be good, they were creating wealth for us all, we just had to trust them. This was my big mistake and I am sorry.

Now I know that the lessons of the previous two centuries should have been heeded, whenever clever greedy people get together and are not watched they will line their own pockets.

Yours

Gordon Brown