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Tony Blair says politicians are underpaid- do you agree?

Blair has claimed that better salaries would improve the "gene pool" of political leaders.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30342948

Do you think increasing the payscale would attract better politicians?
Or should politicians be paid on the basis of their performance perhaps?

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Reply 1

Jammy Duel

Better pay probably would, in theory, attract better people, but whether things are overall better is a whole different matter; people will take offense because they probably don't realise just how small the total MP salary is; as for being paid on performance, how exactly would you measure performance.

Reply 2

Observatory

He's right in his own terms but wrong in general.

Paying MPs and ministers more would increase the amount of competition to become an MP or minister, but this would preferentially select for MPs and ministers who are better at becoming MPs and ministers, not at actually doing those jobs.

The problem is that becoming an MP or minister and performing that job well are very different skills. The more it becomes necessary to select and train for obtaining the job, the more the ability to perform it is crowded out. The result is that we have actor-politicians whose decisions are made by advisors. The advisors' salaries are usually not paid by politicians personally, so the amount of money the politician earns is irrelevant to the quality of advisors. It is quite possible - and quite likely - that we will soon have a situation where advisors and other handlers are paid more than their front men.

Reply 3

TheBBQ

What nonsense, trying to raise their own pay while cutting everyone else's.

Do they every stop trying?

Reply 4

username1221160

Is this the same man who expected British soldiers to throw their lives away finding those elusive Iraqi WMDs for less than half the pay of an MP?

Reply 5

Alfissti

There are some truths to it.

It isn't really something new or something he came up with. It was one of the principles Lee Kuan Yew practised while PM of Singapore. Politicians and civil servants were among the highest paid of professions. It was done because firstly it was the absolute best way possible to attract the very best as politicians and to work for the people. Secondly if you don't properly pay your ministers then you cannot blame them when a small bribe becomes an enticement. Thirdly, higher salaries generally also mean that due to there being an expectation that because of the amount you are being paid you would also be performing at your optimum best at every time.

I suppose a simpler analogy would be the difference between your average teacher that teaches at a state school vs one at your typical public school. One is paid peanuts while another is among the best paid in EU, it doesn't take long to deduce one is better, one will be cream of the crop while the other will essentially be that monkey that is only a teacher because there is absolutely nothing else he or she could do. It doesn't necessarily have to be a state vs private argument. You could also look at the situation in Scandinavian countries (minus Sweden) where teacher salaries are among the highest in EU, there is an ample pool of applicants that only the very best gets chosen to be teachers. Contrast that with UK where salaries isn't high you usually get your usual kinds of scumbags that become teachers or other types of civil servants because they are essentially unemployable in the private sector.

However, giving a high pay in itself won't solve the problem, in UK immediately there would be an argument that the very best jobs will have gone to those with public school education, Oxbridge and most likely upper-middle class White applicants. This will instead open a bigger can of worms. Probably best to just maintain the status quo for now lest Labour gets more ideas on how else to piss even more money in the name of equality.

Reply 6

ClickItBack

Roughly agree with the sentiments of Observatory and Alfissti here.

As it stands, few high calibre graduates dream of entering politics over entering finance or law. Rarely is top managerial talent from the private sector enticed into managing councils, hospitals or government departments.

Representative politicians need a pay rise, as do civil servants in important positions. They also need far more accountability and their tenure/pay tied to performance that they deliver. In other words, they need to shape up to resemble the private sector more.

Reply 7

username33685

Probably deserve higher pay alone for the abuse they get from the general population.

Reply 8

Moosferatu

No all the bribes and favours they get already cancel out any need for a further pay rise.

Reply 9

citydeer

MPs are already paid ridiculous amounts, plus the idea of attracting better people is a bit stupid considering how politics is based a lot off connections and background, they shouldn't be trying to make an already very exclusive and hard to access job even more hard to access.

Reply 10

RF_PineMarten

I absolutely do not agree. Increasing pay is not going to result in MPs who do a better job, it just means those who do a bad job are getting paid even more by the taxpayer. Remember that you don't need any qualifications to become an MP. Also remember that they get expenses on top of their usual pay that people in other careers don't get, you need to bear that in mind when making comparisons to other lines of work.

The best MPs are the ones who aren't in it for the money anyway - like genuine desire to help constituents or strongly supporting a particular cause. If they're in it primarily for the money then they simply do not belong in parliament.

However, that doesn't mean there should be massive pay cuts. If you keep pay too low then it becomes harder for those from lower income backgrounds to get a political career established. In that case, you'd end up with only the middle and high income people becoming politicians, making parliament even less representative.

Reply 11

Schrödingers Cat

I would disagree, increasing pay for MP's might make it more competitive but it won't attract better MP's just people who want more money. I would actually say a lower pay would attract MP's better for the job as people who genuinely want to make a difference and do a good job wont care about the pay. They'll just want to do the job they love.

Reply 12

Observatory

Original post by ClickItBack

I'm not sure our views are as similar as you think.

In particular I think people misunderstand what makes the private sector effective. Internally, large private companies are creaking bureaucracies just like governments. Their internal selection mechanisms for managers are probably no better than those used to select MPs and ministers. The main difference is that the market ruthlessly destroys the poorest performing companies, which provides a check on bureaucratic sclerosis by simply eliminating the most sclerotic companies over time. The state, on the other hand, is immortal and never endures this useful creative destruction.

What I conclude from this is that being a good MP must be self-motivated first and foremost, since there's no effective external selection mechanism. Cutting salaries, therefore, is more likely to eliminate the self-interested dross than raising them. At the very least the self-interested politicians will be stupid enough that they can be routed around by the honest and effective.

In fact I wouldn't mind turning being an MP into a monk-like vocation, where you received a guaranteed income of say £15-20k/year and the use (but not ownership) of a Westminster apartment, and otherwise were legally barred from receiving any other income for life. The people who would be put off by that are the people we don't want in power.

edit - this all concerns politicians rather than civil servants. The civil service probably could benefit from selecting employees for generic jobs like management more widely. However the ultimate conclusion of that line of thought is that all public services should be privatised and people provided with either cash or vouchers to pay for them if there is thought to be some redistribution required, at which point the civil service becomes largely moot.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 13

ChaoticButterfly

Tony blair is doing alright for himself on £10million.

Reply 14

Hazzer2

they shouldn't be paid more as they earn a good amount however people don't realise just how much work is involved in being an mp, even more so if youre a higher minister etc its a 24/7 job, very stressful, a lot of pressure, lots of work at home, public profile etc. it is actually a very hard job and they do deserve to get paid a good salary

Reply 15

thunder_chunky

I don't believe more pay would lead to greater honesty. I think the search for a better calibre of person in that role goes beyond salary. Plus they already have It pretty good. No, **** them.

Original post by rich2606

Probably deserve higher pay alone for the abuse they get from the general population.

Bull****.

Reply 16

Arkasia

Perhaps they do, but I would say he is sitting pretty for a psychotic, egotistical, genocidal murderer.

Reply 17

anosmianAcrimony

Increasing salaries will attract more people who are interested in the financial perks of being a politician. We want people who are interested in actually doing the right thing by the population of Britain. I think ministers' salaries should actually be decreased.

Reply 18

Greenlaner

If Tony Blair thinks so, then it's definitely not true.

Reply 19

KingStannis

It makes intuitive economic sense. But it's hard to justify it when most professionals consider themselves underpayed these days, even if they don't earn extraordinary amounts.