Show some leadership

[weecalf]

For hundreds of years there have been polititions no matter which party they have been living of the fat of the land .If they love and want to do for their country do it for nowt .how can we take a word they says as not being from people who do not understand the difficulties of low paid workers and people striving just to keep their head above water .whats the going rate for your overpaid mp now, about 10 times the rate of your hard working person .

[EcclesCake]

The salary for MPs is ~£65k. Assuming minimum wage, annual salary for a adult full time employee equates to ~£12.5k.

[hc4361]

So if they work for nothing, they must be independently wealthy which means the country will have no hope of having a prime minister from working class stock.
Just like the old days.

[bednobs]

weecalf. there is nothing stopping YOU from becoming politically active and becoming an MP, and then earning £65k

[weecalf]

I would not be able to help and assists the good people of this country and I admit it .If I can help I do but I know my limitations .The welfare and well being of the people should be the aim of leaders ,not scoring points of equally useless people as polititions seem to waste their time doing .

[Tilly2]

I have recently been to see my local M.P. for some help with a problem I was having, which I don't want to discuss on here. He has been fantastic in taking up my cause and helping me fight my battle.

Nothing was too much trouble for him and he sent emails, wrote letters and had meeting with people on my behalf. The matter is now resolved and I've had a lovely letter from him today summarising the situation and offering his help with any other problematic matters in the future. I'd say his salary was well earned if he works that well for his constituents.

Well done that man. (But I still won't vote for his party, and therefore, him!)

[bednobs]

then i'm afraid weecalf that you not in a very strong position to complain

[askyourgran]

Some MP's work hard for their constituents weecalf. We have one at the moment who helped our neighbour with some problems, he's wrote letters, emailed and phoned, all costing him time and money. Not the party I would vote for, but neverthless the most prominent in our area. Why should they work for nothing, would you?

[weecalf]

If all mp were like the afore mentioned fine .Thats what their there to do, help .what worries me is why if they are so good you would not vote for them because the are not the right party .My mp was leass than helpful when approached .what was annnoying was I did vote for them .Why do mp have the fast track on getting things done would the same people say no if the man in the street ask them for help who not polititions.

[bednobs]

mp's have the fast track on getting things dome because organisations and companies are a bit scared when MP's get involved, in case things escalate and questions get asked on the house of commons. Whether your own MP could help you or not largely depends on if what you were asking them was reasonable. As an example, when i worked in NHS customer services, a person wrote to us asking why, if they had a chronic illnesss (from memory it was epiliepsy) couldn't they get free prescriptions like diabetics do. We sent her back the guidelines on who could get free prescriptions (hich didn't include her) So she got her MP involved. It made us laugh a lot because we had to write back to him pointing out that the eligibility for free prescriptions was set by the government, (ie his party in power), and if he wanted to change it, his party were perfectly at liberty to do so through the department of health (in nicer words than that obviously). So although he got involved (well, probably his office staff actually) the person didn't get any free prescriptions