COUNTING THE PENNIES?
There`s a lot of fuss going on right now about MPs salaries with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority suggesting a rise from £66,000 to £74,000 a year. By and large, the public reaction has been one of outrage that these freeloading chancers should grab yet more taxpayers` cash for what seems to be a part time job (they`ve just packed up from Parliament until September.) And some MPs, Ministers and others have baulked at the idea of being paid more, ever sensitive to the feelings of their constituents, many of whom continue to struggle in difficult financial times.
And you might expect me to join the clamorous throng and add my indignation and objection to such a harebrained wheeze. But wait. Maybe I`m mellowing a bit. Maybe I`m getting more philosophical in my advancing dotage. Or maybe, just maybe, there is an example of genuinely grotesque excess that makes the proposals for MPs salaries seem not only modest but quite possibly reasonable.
And we need look no further than the parallel universe of Premier League football for our example. It seems that Wayne Rooney is dischuffed about not being the main man at Manchester United any more and may be on his way out of Old Trafford. He is reported as being on a wage of £250,000 each and every week with his modest income boosted by image rights, sponsorship, appearances and, yes, even a book deal - the notion of Wayne Rooney writing anything other than a formal transfer request is indeed one to stretch the imagination.
And so all the while grotesque excesses such as Rooney and the rest of the inhabitants of that far off, distant Premier League planet are indulged, I find it hard to complain about a proposal that would see MPs receive in a whole year what Mr. Rooney and his ilk are paid in a matter of hours. I guess it`s called perspective?
And you might expect me to join the clamorous throng and add my indignation and objection to such a harebrained wheeze. But wait. Maybe I`m mellowing a bit. Maybe I`m getting more philosophical in my advancing dotage. Or maybe, just maybe, there is an example of genuinely grotesque excess that makes the proposals for MPs salaries seem not only modest but quite possibly reasonable.
And we need look no further than the parallel universe of Premier League football for our example. It seems that Wayne Rooney is dischuffed about not being the main man at Manchester United any more and may be on his way out of Old Trafford. He is reported as being on a wage of £250,000 each and every week with his modest income boosted by image rights, sponsorship, appearances and, yes, even a book deal - the notion of Wayne Rooney writing anything other than a formal transfer request is indeed one to stretch the imagination.
And so all the while grotesque excesses such as Rooney and the rest of the inhabitants of that far off, distant Premier League planet are indulged, I find it hard to complain about a proposal that would see MPs receive in a whole year what Mr. Rooney and his ilk are paid in a matter of hours. I guess it`s called perspective?
1 comment:
Thanks, Ray, but I thought the idea of IPSA was that they now set the MPs salaries, etc......it remains to be seen if any of them decline to accept IPSA`s recommended increase.
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