The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, December 08, 2013

Moral Restraint

The House of Claimants, having set up an independent authority to regulate the pay of MPs, is now reverberating with indignant eructations because that authority has awarded MPs an unpolitical pay rise. Before the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority was set up, the usual practice was to avoid politically awkward pay increases in favour of inflated expenses claims, rather like publicity-conscious bankers refusing bonuses and then hiking up their salaries. As well as the pay increase, IPSA also proposes a reduction in pensions, which it claims will keep the net cost of our Mother of Parliaments within the present bargain-basement parameters. Naturally, all two and a bit of the main parties are frothing with indignation at the idea that an independent authority should have the gall to make an independent judgement, particularly when this same authority was set up by themselves for that very purpose. Pompous oafs like Philip Hammond and desperate pipsqueaks like Danny Alexander have already pledged to refuse the pay increase in solidarity with the proles they have been fleecing, much as Ronnie Biggs might refuse a complimentary rail ticket out of compassion for injured train drivers. Whether they also plan to refuse the concomitant pension restrictions is as yet unclear.

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