this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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UK Politics

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General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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[–] 13esq@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Why should a politician make that much?

The idea is that it's one of, if not the most important job in the country and you want to be able to attract the best candidates.

If you were an extremely talented person and I offered you an MP role for £100K where you're under constant public scrutiny or a job on the board of a company for £1M which is arguably much easier than being an MP, which would you choose?

Inb4 "MP/PM roles are extremely prestigious so you should be happy to get paid so much less". You can't pay a mortgage with prestige.

I would actually go as far to say MPs should be paid more, but that they shouldn't be able to claim expenses or have second jobs etc etc

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Unless the pm is a kleptomaniac. Hello from Malaysia - we give reduced jail terms and discounts on fines of more than 200million, if you embezzle over a billion dollars while in public office.

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If you're an extremely talented person I would offer you the opportunity to bid on a contract to do a specific job.

If you cared about the country and had a vision you would apply to do it no matter the wage.

You don't want a politician to be the most talented person. You want a politician to be the person who has the ideas and hires the right people to get the job done.

[–] 13esq@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The difference between ideals and reality.

The reality is that there is a class of people that can afford to be MPs, they're not doing it for the salary or their electorate, there doing it to bend the rules for themselves and their rich mates.

How many people do you know that do a job for the honour of it? Every now and again you might here a sportsman or someone like that say "I love my job so much I'd do it for free!", they still all take the money though.

Your last paragraph is somewhat of a paradox.