Patrick Christys: The nation’s heart bleeds for our poverty stricken MPs forced to live on salaries of £82,000-a-year

The nation’s heart bleeds for the plight of our poverty stricken, hard-up MPs who are being forced to live hand to mouth on their measly salary of £82,000-a-year. When they shuffle into the House of Commons, ragged clothes barely clinging to their skeletal frames, stomachs rumbling, looking like extras from Oliver Twist, it really highlights the crippling financial injustice with which this nation is ravaged.

Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley, the father of the house as our longest serving MP, has given a foot in mouth interview with the New Statesman saying he doesn’t know how some MPs get by on £82k, he said ‘it’s really grim’, and he wants a 22% pay rise. That would bring MPs salaries in line with the average GPs, although to be fair it’s not as if we’re getting value for money there either is it?

That would be just over £100,000 per year. Bearing in mind that the average salary in the UK is apparently just over £31,000, according to the Office for National Statistics that the Tories have just binned off the £20-a-week universal credit hike, energy bills are going through the roof, inflation’s on the rocket, transport costs for people will increase as we all get back to work. Yes, an increase in the minimum wage to £9.42-an-hour is nice but probably not enough to compensate for all that - it’s not a great look for the Tory grandee.

Before people start to think this is some kind of radical commie rant, I am actually going to put forward the case for paying MPs more, but I think it’s important to have some facts about MPs pay: MPs receive a basic salary of £81,932-a-year (as of April 2021) - they get an increased salary for appointments such as ministerial roles - Expenses to cover the cost of work-related expenditure - MPs are entitled to claim £9,000-a-year for postage and stationery - They also receive allowances towards having somewhere to live in London and in their constituency.

MPs can also claim back travel costs between Parliament and their constituency - They also receive a pension which is either 1/40th or 1/50th of their final pensionable salary for each year.

The Prime Minister earns £157,372. Ian Blackford, the SNP Westminster leader, raked in £241,904.36 in expenses during 2017-18 Total amount of MPs expenses in 2020 was £127.6 million.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader and notorious lover of the word scum, made us pay £249 for some airpods, bargain. So those are some facts and figures, I don’t think many of us will shed a tear for MPs bank balances.

However, should we pay MPs more? It isn’t an easy job, it does have a massive impact on your personal life and freedoms, I mean you can’t get away with cheating on your wife with one of your employees whilst simultaneously breaking the lockdown rules you yourself put forward, to use but one example.

Why would people who could obviously very easily go and earn a couple of hundred grand in the City, or as a lawyer, or running their own business, be incentivised to go into politics, assuming that we remove the deep sense of public duty from the equation of course.

Maybe, if we want to attract the best and the brightest, we should be paying them more. Some of this lot aren’t household names in their own homes. They can’t be the best we have to offer. We’d be better outsourcing our political talent from Claudia Webbe MP's Beroos.