Remember that "we're all in it together" stuff?
Yeah, just forget that.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is to unveil its proposals - including boosting MPs' salaries by 11% to £74,000


MPs are to get an inflation-busting 11% pay rise after a watchdog refused to scale back the increase at a time voters are feeling the squeeze.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) will unveil its final proposals next week - including boosting MPs' salaries by £7,600 to £74,000 from 2015.

It is expected to try to quell criticism by announcing a tougher-than-expected squeeze on MPs' pensions in a bid to cancel out the £4.6m cost to the taxpayer.

All three main party leaders have condemned the increase at a time of national austerity, with Labour's Ed Miliband and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg pledging to shun the extra cash.

David Cameron has stopped short of matching that pledge - and is under pressure from some Tory MPs to back the increase.

Mathew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance campaign group, said: "Taxpayers will be furious that the pay rise comes at a time when MPs urge public pay restraint."

Following a consultation on the proposals - first set out in July - Ipsa is set to press ahead however.

And MPs have no way to prevent the rise coming into force after the next general election - unless they change the law set up in the wake of the expenses scandal to stop them setting their own pay.

Research by Ipsa found two-thirds of MPs believe they are underpaid, and the watchdog's chairman Sir Ian Kennedy says politicians' pay must "catch up" after years of being suppressed.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "We believe that the cost of politics should be going down, not up."

Commons deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle - a Labour MP - cautioned against interfering in the system.

"I agree that MPs should not vote on their own pay," he told the Mail on Sunday. "It should be left to an independent body. It's not in the gift of the party leaders.

Ipsa's original report conceded there is no "compelling evidence" that MPs' current salary level is deterring candidates, making people leave Parliament, affecting the diversity of the House, or lowering the standard of ministers.

Among measures already on the table to offset the cost of the wage rise is an end to "resettlement grants" of up to £65,000 for departing MPs.

Under the plans, that would be reduced to two weeks' pay for every year of service if they are under 41, and three weeks if they are older by 2020.

A £15 dinner allowance would be scrapped, claims for tea and biscuits would not be allowed, and taxpayer-funded taxis home only allowed after 11pm.

There would also be a crackdown on claims for running second homes, with costs such as TV licences and contents insurance no longer being met.

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These ipsa folk truly live in a world of their own innit.

It's just outrageous. And 'independent' my arse! There's got to be palms being lined.

"we're all in it together"..yeah right, all in the s#it you mean!

But their shit is gold plated & ermine lined, with chilled champagne on tap.

Hello, Lonewolf.

Here's my plan...

Gilly and I will storm parliament. Gilly will use her jedi mind-powers to get us initial access, then I'll break some arse using my ninja skills and floral designs.

As a last resort, the skett-beast can be tethered and left outside to ward off any intervention from them, there pesky MI5 bods.

Once we've cleaned house, I suggest we tear the place down and build some nice allotments.

Who's with us?

hello Gilly.

Oh I'm well up for it alright, Abs! Count me IN!

Gilly wrote:
Wahoo!!

Next stop, Buck Palace!!

I say we bring Andy & WUB along too, to have a stern word with them about their economic failings . That'll learn 'em!

Gilly wrote:
No need, Gilly-bean. They're all out, clear, finished, history, gone, KAPUTT! Clean slate and all that. I think it'd be pretty cool to try and decentralise it all, like we used to when we were tribes n shit. See how this place works? It doesn't always work well or particularly expediently, but I firmly believe we do things fairly here, at least.

Gilly wrote:
lol, it should be self evident to a child that if there is only 1 apple orchard in the world and you have to keep borrowing apples at interest from the one source of apples that you are simply going to end up owing a shitload of apples.

This being the money grows on trees analogy

See! They must be subjected to this torture before swinging from lamp-posts.

Did you know that the minimum wage in the United States has been frozen for over four years? You can see this here:

www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm

It's funny how when 'independent' bodies make decisions on MPs, who are useful to the existing system, they recommend a massive pay increase that would never even conceivably be recommended for any other workers (although they're all still creaming their expenses anyway), but when a government makes a decision about the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, there's never enough money to go around.

I've been gone from the UK for 7 years and I have to say...wages look exactly the same as when I left!

I don't think you missed much.

It still seems about the same, in Ireland entry level IT workers were on about 25k euro in 2007 and now about 32k in 2013.

In the UK there's IT workers on 24 to 26k sterling and it was about the same in 2007. Prices seem to have edged up a little but not much, mainly on fuels of course, baccy, alcohol and all the usual taxed items but its obvious to see that tax increases have been behind most of the rise there.
More red tape I notice too..in fact thats been the biggest change I've seen so far, ludicrous amounts of bullshit and not just with gov either, landlords have got really bananas of late with requirements and extra costs, no competition between them either, they just all decided en mass to make it all 'standard practise' etc.

I'm seeing more of the "no dhss" in housing adverts these days, good job I'm housing association!

They're doing themselves out of business though and landlords are paying ludicrous fees to these stupid agents too.
Local rags are failing, its all going on the net.
Landlords could compete and undercut so many adverts by simply going alone and using a solicitor, it just seems yet again to underline everything thats already been said about most people really just being really stupid :/

I see the same houses sitting on donedeal for months and months unrented, just unbelievable.

Ah, come on guys. An independent organisation has told them that they have to take a pay rise - it's not their fault. They don't really want the money but what can they do!?
The cabinet really, really want all of us to be in this together but all those pesky inherited mi££ions just keep getting in the way. Poor fuckers.

Do you know how much fois gras costs these days? Nor do they, they send a minion to purchase it.