Cash for Questions

[weltweit]

Agree, but he is a QC. could pull in £74k in a month

So let him go and be a QC, Members of Parliament are public servants.

 

[brogdale]

So let him go and be a QC, Members of Parliament are public servants.

Not only is that descriptor wildly inappropriate, but also (I think) technically incorrect. Once elected they are paid post-holders with no Crown contract of employment.

 

[gosub]

So let him go and be a QC, Members of Parliament are public servants.

One of those jobs that is a benefit to have them in the Parliament I think.
He'll have blagged a free house in London as a MP perk which I think he forgets and a decent pension, should have weighed that up before he opened his mouth.

 

[weltweit]

Not only is that descriptor wildly inappropriate, but also (I think) technically incorrect. Once elected they are paid post-holders with no Crown contract of employment.

Are you saying they have no expected duties or job descriptions? perhaps they don't, nothing would surprise me given their behaviour. I note that they voted against the second jobs directorships and consultancies tonight, onward with the status quo it seems.

 

[weltweit]

One of those jobs that is a benefit to have them in the Parliament I think.
He'll have blagged a free house in London as a MP perk which I think he forgets and a decent pension, should have weighed that up before he opened his mouth.

I dare say him being an MP in such a wealthy constituency may have biased him towards large incomes and wealth, perhaps if he had been MP for Tonypandy he might have felt that £67k plus benefits was quite a lot.

 

[gosub]

Forgot, where he represents these days, no free house on that one, still think of him as Pentlands, probably the accent.

 

[gosub]

Does Kensingston & Chelsea include North Kensington? That wasn't particularly wealthy last time I looked (about a week after the tube bombings iirc)

 

[weltweit]

Forgot, where he represents these days, no free house on that one, still think of him as Pentlands, probably the accent.

Kensington ..

I thought he was Kensington and Chelsea but it seems I am mistaken.

 

[gosub]

Are you saying they have no expected duties or job descriptions? perhaps they don't, nothing would surprise me given their behaviour. I note that they voted against the second jobs directorships and consultancies tonight, onward with the status quo it seems.

They voted FOR second jobs.
Job description of MP
The public servant thing, is typical British Idiosyncrasy. People working for the civil service, who the public can't sack or hire are public servants, who are accountable to MP's the public's elected representives, that are not meaningfully bound to represent the public. Would imagine its all tied up with the Civil War

 

[weltweit]

Yes, what I wrote was misleading, what I should have said was they voted against the proposition of no directorships or consultancies for MPs.

And yes they are not public servants in the way people in the civil service are, but while they are not that, they are working in the service of the public, the public in their case being their constituents, no?

 

[Sasaferrato]

Are you saying they have no expected duties or job descriptions? perhaps they don't, nothing would surprise me given their behaviour. I note that they voted against the second jobs directorships and consultancies tonight, onward with the status quo it seems.

An MP can be elected, then go on holiday until the next election. They have no legal obligation to do anything.

 

[Teaboy]

An MP can be elected, then go on holiday until the next election. They have no legal obligation to do anything.

We had a local councilor that tried that. He was pretty confident he could carry out his duties from the Caribbean.

 

[Sasaferrato]

We had a local councilor that tried that. He was pretty confident he could carry out his duties from the Caribbean.

We had one who was not quite so exotic, he tried to run his ward from North Shields, a couple of hundred miles away. He was also done for growing grass in his loft.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

i'm fairly sure that local councillors who don't show up to council meetings can be turfed out. i think there's quite a few other standards that apply to councillors but not MPs

 

[belboid]

i'm fairly sure that local councillors who don't show up to council meetings can be turfed out. i think there's quite a few other standards that apply to councillors but not MPs

guidance is six months, unless they have applied for special dispensation

 

[Wilf]

guidance is six months, unless they have applied for special dispensation

Six months! It's hardly worth getting a long haul flight to an exotic location for anything less than a year.

 

[weltweit]

'Cash For Access': Rifkind And Straw Cleared

Rifkind and Straw have been cleared, how did that happen?

 

[SpookyFrank]

If what they did was within the rules then the rules are wrong.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Mr Straw added he regretted "ever having fallen into the trap" and had tried to check on the bogus company before the meeting "but these checks were not enough to expose what was a deliberate and meticulously planned deception".

So he regrets getting caught.

 

[brogdale]

If what they did was within the rules then the rules are wrong.

They make the rules.

 

[SpookyFrank]

They make the rules.

Well quite. Parliamentary standards ffs, that's up there with Little Chef quality control in the oxymoron stakes.

 

[brogdale]

Well quite. Parliamentary standards ffs, that's up there with Little Chef quality control in the oxymoron stakes.

Yep...

 

[weltweit]

Seems a pretty rum do that Rifkind and Straw did say in their meetings with the fictional Chinese company that they could sell access, in Rifkind's case for £5,000 a day, and yet they have done nothing wrong. How does that work then?

And how does the whole transcript change that bit that we all saw, which they did say?