God help us. John Bercow is the new Speaker
- God help us. John Bercow is the new Speaker
- Electing the new Speaker – by Chris
- We should give John Bercow a chance (Mathew Hulbert)
- Like it or not, John Bercow won the ballot for Speaker fairly and squarely: Garbo
- Mr Speaker Bercow is going to have problems
- Mr Speaker Bercow: the House’s Jeeves (Carl Gardner)
The new Speaker is John Bercow. Ooooohhh shit.
John Bercow has come out today with a view that MPs deserve a basic salary of £100k. This is a quote from Mr Bercow in today’s Mail:
“‘You stress that you do not look at how hard MPs work but at what our responsibilities are. I suggest that those responsibilities, in terms of breadth, scope and contact with the public, are comparable with those of a General Practitioner or the Chief Executive of a medium-sized local authority. The use of such a comparator would point to a significant increase in remuneration for MPs.’”
In making this statement, John Bercow is a fool, whether or not he is Speaker.
There is a whole series of problems here. Here are three.
First of all, if there is one lesson we should have learned from the Expenses debacle it is that it is a mistake to confuse “worth” and “responsibility” with “wages” in the case of MPs. Bishops who sit in the Lords make a stipend of around 37-38k ukp, and that undermines neither their value to society and Parliament, nor should it undermine their self-worth. One of our local Dioceses, Southwell, proposed that the Archbishop of Canterbury should earn the same as the local Vicar. That is a prophetic clarion call of principle that needs to be heard by our Members of Parliament. Decent income, YES. 100k – unlikely. Difference in salary between a Back Bencher and the Prime Minister – if we value our democracy, NO.
Secondly, the comparison with GPs is surreal, spurious and – if he knows what he is doing – mischevious. GPs have inflated incomes because their representative body took the Government – specifically in the person of Patsy Hewitt – and MPs, who failed to sort out the mess subsequently, to the cleaners.
By my reckoning, that “decison” has cost the country £300m a year since 2003-4, or around £2bn wasted, and still counting – since no one has seen fit to fix the problem beyond asking for a few hours extra work when it actually needs a 20-25% income reduction for GPs.
If anything, this shows the folly of handing over the decisions about MP salaries to a body based on number-cruncing and comparators. A better solution is needed, such as a statutory link to the 90th percentile of earned income.
Thirdly, how does Bercow not know this?
So, as I say, God help us; the new Speaker is unlikely to be able to do so.
I am not encouraged. I hope I am wrong.
Categories: All WW, Breaking News, News - Current Affairs, Parliaments, Personal View, Politics
You never know, God has a track record of using very unlikely people. And Bercow has good heritage in that regard. Give the guy a chance. There’s a serious danger of going with all the media momentum on this, and Bercow (and Parliament in general) has a better chance of success if we stop breathing down his neck and give him a few weeks to get stuck in. I know nothing about the guy, I just feel really uncomfortable with the number of people who already want to kneecap him.
David Keen´s last blog post..Is Mission on the CofE’s Agenda?
Good points, David. If I am wrong I will be happy, and I will burn this article and say so.
But if the last 5 years has taught us one thing, it is that we do not achieve forward movement by failing to apply pressure.
One thing you have to remember is that every time a GP doesn’t send you to hospital, that’s £450/night in costs of a bed saved. You pay a lot for a walking encyclopaedia of ailments, because that’s what they’re worth.
If I felt my MP did anything *like* as much in the community as any GP I’d give the idea some credence. But frankly, most of them fritter their time away being board members and not being in Westminster or their designated patch anyway. At least, that is the public perception, and it’s up to the MPs as our supposed representatives to prove otherwise. Until that time, they can just earn the same as the rest of us, between 25-40k/yr, and deal with it.
Tim´s last blog post..Home
Tim – I’d say our MP does earn his slice of the cake (David Laws), and does a lot in the community, though I suspect he is more gifted and committed than the average. It would be bizarre if we were paying the folks who run the country less than a secondary school headteacher. I think their salary is about right, it’s the culture that’s wrong, and MPs know they’ve got a year to sort it out before we get the chance to kick them out.
David Keen´s last blog post..Is Mission on the CofE’s Agenda?
[...] Matt Wardman, I’m not impressed. His acceptance speech demonstrates that he doesn’t really get [...]
@tim
>One thing you have to remember is that every time a GP doesn’t send you to hospital, that’s £450/night in costs of a bed saved. You pay a lot for a walking encyclopaedia of ailments, because that’s what they’re worth.
I take your point.
However, I see no need to replace a 75-80k a year walking encyclopaedia with one that costs 110k.
They got into a culture of “better results require more financial rewards”. They don’t. Better results are part of basic professionalism.
One thing this whole debate proves is that worth and salary are not directly correlated. Premiership footballers are not providing nearly as much a service to society as doctors, yet can earn in a week what they supposedly earn in a year. People get paid what the market demands.
The fact is, if we start to pay peanuts for our MPs the top quality one will go elsewhere. We will be left with a part time parliament. This argument that MPs are numbskulls who struggle to fill their day is absolute nonsense. They have to deal with Parliamentary and Constituency issues seven days a week. They sit in surgeries all day Saturday speaking to all sorts of constituents and they listen and try to help. In that process they take abuse for issues that are almost always not even in their control. It is not a walk in the park.
Yes there are good MPs and bad MPs; there are good and bad in all walks of life. To write them all off as lazy idiots is just lazy and pathetic. I for one would not be an MP, it is just not worth the hassle for the reward – and yes, they are rewarded financially far better than I am in my current job.
As for Bercow, give the guy a chance!! He hasn’t even robed up yet. Some of this MP bating appears simply for the sake of it and serves no purpose whatsoever other than to keep the debate stuck fast in the mud that is “all MPs are bad”. Time to move on and make some progress and engage in more constructive debates I feel.
We’ll have to disagree on the salary point, I think – although I’d like to start with some comparable numbers.
On your other points I think I agree – especially on the “MPs have become glorified social workers” and that distracts them from serious policy business. That is a symptom of other institutions having become disfunctional such that they will only respond to an Exocet level intervention, and the solution is with those institutions and perhaps with resourcing MPs more in their constituencies if they are to have that role.
On workload, it is certainly the case that sitting days are at an historical low, and that simultaneously rafts of legislation are going through entirely undebated.
That *is* in large measure a result of the HoC allowing itself to be emasculated, and I lay that squarely at the door of New Labour’s policy to undermine the effectiveness of Parliamentary Scrutiny to “get business through”, and the willingness of the Lab majority to accept that. Not answerng questions at PMQ, and responding to proper scrutiny with attacks on the scrutinisers (see how Lords’ committee bscrutiny of Terrorism Laws has been handled) are all of a piece.
If Mr Bercow can help restore that, then good luck to him – but he’s off beam in a number of areas of his thinking.
Indeed – change is needed of that there can be little dispute. A serious debate about salary/expenses/etc. is needed. To move things on though the media and other commentators (be they amateur or professional) need to stop dwelling on how terrible and useless MPs are and focus on what needs to change. The debate is get caught in ever decreasing circles at the moment and it is affecting the chances of serious and productive change. The “do away with the lot of them” attitude (fortunately no a view I have seen in the WW) is just so unconstructive and only creates more problems. Time for progress – by the way, did anyone notice there was a financial crisis going on?
Tying MPs salaries to any given senior professional is always going to lead to a desire to inflate that professional salary!
There’s a bigger issue with MPs being able to set their own pay, effectively. I’d also like to see any pay rises not taking effect until after a general election.
On JB, we’ll have to wait and see.
xD.
Salary figures aside (and I don’t think an MP’s salary shouldn’t be as high as a GP’s), a lot of this is down to matters of perception. We want transparency, we want MPs to be giving good service on blogs and Twitter.
Key questions to ponder: do you know your MP’s name? Their website? Their position on issues that matter to you? Do you find their website regularly updated or is it just some front-of-house “this is me” placeholder? The fewer of those you can answer, the less good a job *they’re* doing (with our taxes).
Well, there’s a split of responsibility there:
a) government must be make most of the effort to bridge the gap with the public through publicity and transparency, and
b) people should vote for who they actually want in the first place, ie without stupid practices such as “strategic voting” or “rebelling against mainstream parties”, etc.
Tim´s last blog post..Home
Dave – I agree. MPs should not be in the position where they have to approve/decide their own pay. Take it out their hands. So simply to do.
“Bishops make a stipend of around £22k,”
Pardon, sorry? There isn’t a flat rate, but generally their stipends seem to start at around £31,000 for a suffragan, up to £37,000 for a diocesan (rising to about £55,000 for Richard Chartres as Bishop of London). £22,000 is more like a senior parish priest’s pay (which I think starts at £18,000).
Which isn’t a huge amount for the work they do, and would rather bear out your initial point, but even so…
See here.
The Half-Blood Welshman´s last blog post..The right man for all the wrong reasons.
[Ed: Point taken - I've quoted the wrong figure. I'm actually after £30k->£38k, as borne out by the spreadsheet on the CofE website here.
Realistic "responsibility" comparisons with MPs could be with "Bishops who sit in Parliament", or "Bishops who run offices with several personal staff" (i.e., all of them).
Bishops also have responsibility for anything between (estimating) several dozen and several hundred clergy. On that basis, no backbench MPs come close to the same level of responsibility.
Matt]
[...] Carl Gardner • June 23, 2009 The New House of Commons SpeakerGod help us. John Bercow is the new SpeakerElecting the new Speaker – by ChrisWe should give John Bercow a chance (Mathew Hulbert)Like it or [...]
The bishops do get their house thrown in, which given the size of them is probably worth upwards of £15k a year, or if you’re the Bishops of Durham/Bath and Wells, beyond calculation. And they might argue that they’re responsible for an average of 500,000-ish souls as well, putting them more on a level with an MEP. But lets not go there!
David Keen´s last blog post..‘Killing God’, Youth and Faith
JOHN BERCOW ELECTED SPEAKER 22.06.09
So the man with seeingly few principles or deeply held convictions was elected. The man who changed his core beliefs and politics to suit his ambitions. How can someone change from being ultra right wing to ultra liberal overnight? What he calls his moment of ‘enlightenment’ or his political journey. Did he have Damascus Road experience? I don’t think so, more like the minute he realised he would have to court New Labour and Lib Dems. MPs favour, to achieve his ambition of becoming Speaker of the House. It is then he must have decided to do whatever it took to achieve his goal. Even if it meant being disloyal to his own party and its leaders and ‘greasing up’ to the opposition at every opportunity. In other words he was prepared to sell his soul for the ‘pot of gold’ he yearned for. Close observers of John Bercow knew this; especially his Tory colleagues. No wonder they had such solemn faces when the result was announced. Only when prompted by David Cameron did a few Tory MPs give a slow and weak hand-clap, the rest decided to keep their arms crossed or hands firmly on their laps. One Tory MP shouted, ‘Not in my name!’ As the labour benches enjoyed their moment of childish spite with their smiling faces knowing they had left their final lasting legacy, by achieving something with their ‘bloc vote’, that would hurt David Cameron and the Conservative Party when they get into power, long after this New Labour Government sinks beneath the waves; in their rotten and stinking ship.
Knowing John Bercow’s liberal views on abortion and hearing about his ridiculous amendment that he tabled for the third reading of the Embryology Bill last year, (which wasn’t heard in the end, due to a Government guillotine on the bill) reflected his new ultra liberal views on moral issues. I therefore fear for the protection of unborn children in the UK; when the emotive issue is next debated in the House. I and many others will be watching for his promised fairness and impartiality on such issues. How will he stop himself from ridiculing people who disagree with him? Will he continue to use his old method of shutting down the debate, by personally attacking his opponents to undermine them? I and many others will be watching him very closely on important debates; especially on moral issues.
“The bishops do get their house thrown in,”
Isn’t that half the problem with MPs too, David?
I fully agree that they have far greater responsibilities than most MPs – given they have to look after clergy, and housing, and various trusts, and know something about the spiritual and lay health of their diocese. Also, as this takes a lot of time, they seem to find it difficult to hold down second jobs (not that I’m making a party political point there…)
Maybe we should start thinking of MP as a vocational thing as well…compare them with directors of charities perhaps, as suggested by Dorothy Wainwright for Civil Servants? And pay them accordingly. We wouldn’t get the really greedy and ambitious lot in then, but I’m not sure after the last thirty years whether that would be such an issue. The risk is that it would further confine politics only to those who are loaded already
The Half-Blood Welshman´s last blog post..The right man for all the wrong reasons.
@Half-Blood
>“The bishops do get their house thrown in,”
>Isn’t that half the problem with MPs too, David?
I think it shows up the difference. The Bishops live strictly over the shop, and the ABC can’t sell Lambeth – which stops him pocketing the difference
[Update to post: Bercow is doing better than I expected, but I'll still want to see if he can escape this "tiny minority have abused the system" idea. Minority - yes. Tiny minority - no.]
BREAKING NEWS……
UKIP TO STAND AGAINST JOHN BERCOW IN HIS BUCKINGHAM SEAT AT THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION……….
BUCKS HERALD STORY BELOW:
http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/UKIP-will-stand-against-Buckingham.5402229.jp
The Sunday Telegraph 28.06.2009 reveals more details of John Bercow’s £40,000 private income. Page 7 Quote by Patrick Sawer & Melissa Kite: ‘The new Commons Speaker was accused last night of profiting from his work as a government adviser on special educational needs. John Bercow was paid £40,000 by a health care firm which hired him after he wrote a report that led to a £52 million increase in special needs funding. The MP worked for six months for the Priory Group, which runs a number of special needs schools, giving advice about children who suffer from speech and language difficulties. He attended around five board meetings before he resigned from the post on becoming Speaker last week The payments declared by Mr Bercow in the Register of Members’ Interests will now raise questions about the propriety of MPs taking money from firms working in an area in which they have dealt directly in Parliament.
Tory opponents of Mr Berocow, who was voted in as Michael Martin’s replacement despite little support from his own party, said the disclosures cast fresh doubts on his suitability as Speaker. ” This calls into question his judgement. He appears to have profited from his work as Brown’s adviser”, said one MP.
Mr Bercow, once a member of the right-wing Monday Club but now on the left of his party, has also been criticised for “flipping” the designation of his second home, enabling him to avoid paying capital gains tax.’ Unquote.