Why i feel all MP's should only claim a average skilled workers wage

This is a socialist policy that i do strongly agree with that we feel all elected representitives who claim to represent the working class should only claim the average skilled labourers wage and no more expenses. It has only just died down but the expenses scandels are still there and leaving a big scar on the Westminster bubble which seems increasingly detached from the rest of reality.

ive. been looking at a article below which puts the case for all MP's to not gain all these expenses which has damaged the trust people have in them beyond repair i feel but if they only took a average workers wage the public would not see them as above them ain any way.
If any socialist from be it TUSC or any other anti cuts direction will always look to only claim the average workers wage and no more.


During the expenses scandel the SHEER arrogance of MPs is astounding. Caught like rabbits in a car's headlights, they still claim they did nothing wrong when they asked us to pay for everything from KitKats to clearing out the family moat! Some of them are now offering to pay back some money but only because of the outrage from ordinary workers.

The only thing more astounding than the arrogance is the excuses. Apparently, MPs have to be able to claim lavish expenses so they can get to work on time.

One MP, whose constituency is in Luton, had her second home in Southampton, so she could maintain her relationship with her partner. No doubt, low-paid women workers who often have to take up several different jobs to secure a decent wage will be sympathetic!

Women who clean offices in the morning, work as teaching assistants or in a school kitchen by day, then have another job in the evening will know all about not seeing their family and ensuring that they get to each job on time. Not for them though, the luxury of a second home and taxi fares at taxpayers' expense.

Even when they clearly acted against the rules, MPs' excuses are that they over-claimed as they were 'too busy' to check. The trade union members who I represent would have been disciplined and sacked if they had used such a lame defence if they had ever been found to have over-claimed.

Yet, while MPs are living it up, we're expected to tighten our belts to pay for the economic crisis. In Greenwich, where I am a trade union representative, the council's latest cuts proposals will mean that care managers, responsible for putting together care packages for the elderly, will lose up to £5,000 a year from their salary.

Mental health social workers are to lose £400 a month and the children's social work team based at the local Queen Elizabeth Hospital is to be disbanded despite all the concerns raised about child protection.

Parents, together with Unison and the Socialist Party, are continuing to fight the closure of Charlotte Turner School [see page 11]. The council insists on this closure despite a huge majority of people telling the council, via its consultation exercise, that the school must stay open.

We need real workers' representatives to stand up for workers. The politicians, the government and the councils are not listening. We need a voice for the working class.

As the recession grows deeper, more and more people will demand that politicians stand up for ordinary people. They will want a bailout for the workers, not the bankers.

No such alternative can be found in the great hydra-headed Labour/Tory/LibDem parliamentary monster, which worships capitalism and the millionaires. We need a new workers' party to stand up for the millions.

When this new party wins members of parliament, it will need to withstand the pressures from MPs who don't bother trying to get a better deal for workers. When MPs get lavish expenses for often imaginary second homes, what do they care if more and more people find it impossible to pay for their only one?

From 1983 to 1992, socialists Dave Nellist and the late Terry Fields and Pat Wall became MPs. They only accepted the average wage level of a skilled worker and the expenses needed to do their jobs, which were fully vetted by local trade unionists. All the rest was donated back to workers' causes locally, nationally and internationally.


I myself think this is a excellent positive policiy to have and shows that as socialists we will not lavish our career's and try to do over the class we represent. If i ever stood for election which i may do i too will only claim a average workers wage. People say it is not enough for the hard work MP's do. I dispute this prefusely as although MP's have big responsibilities i fail to see how their work deserves big wages and almost unlimited expenses paid for by the good old tax payer.

Sure their job may be challenging but is it more challenging than a nurses, soldier, firefighter or a social worker for example. I really dont think it is i would say there is a case for wages to be increased across the board with a eventual level of a living wage increasing year on year to represent inflation and growth.

But i fail to see how a MP deserves big expenses while average workers struggle to get by. SO the case for all elected representitives national or council or on a European level should always be rooted in the working class's and that means not claiming and putting yourself on a pedestall above the rest of the class your supposed to represent .