What’s the equivalent of an MP?
The excuse many MPs have given for abusing the expenses system is that their salary (£65k a year) is far too low compared to equivalent jobs.
It seems that they think they’re doing the equivalent of a medical doctor or a lawyer, which means that they think they should be earning more than £100k a year.
But is that reasonable? There are no formal requirements for becoming an MP, and backbenchers can to a certain degree decide their workload themselves. On the other hand, there is absolutely no job security (but a great pension scheme is provided).
YouGov just asked me a question about this:
Think about how much a Member of Parliament currently gets paid in salary. If MPs were to have their pay linked to that of another profession, which of the following professions do you think would be an appropriate link?
- Senior civil servant
- Headteacher
- Doctor
- Chief Executive of a FTSE 100 company
- Judge
- Police inspector
- Teacher
- Police constable
- Social Worker
- Nurse
- Army private
- Shop assistant
- Call center worker
- Cleaner
- State pensioner
I don’t think any of these are exact equivalents, but in the end I opted for police inspector (i.e., ~£45k a year).
What would you have chosen?
Call Centre Worker ,.,.
About eqivalent to Con’s new job !