Politics - The Non-Brexit Thread.

Disgraced ex-Labour MP Fiona Onasanya (the one found guilty & imprisoned for lying about a speeding ticket) has been released from prison today just 28 days into a 3 month stretch as part of the hugely respected (not)early release scheme. Although Onasanya will be tagged & placed under curfew she is effectively allowed to resume her role as MP as of tomorrow (she was still able to collect her salary & expenses whilst in prison anyway).Who said trust in politicians & politics is broken when we have just another crook added to the mix of already untrustworthy & crooked people in parliament already.

First past the post will deal with her

Today on Totally Unsurprising News at Ten, David Lammy is being a fucking bellend. Again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47400300

The same David Lammy who, in the 12 months up to September 2018 claimed £175,000 in expenses with a total of over £1 million in the last 10 years.

The same David Lammy who along with the rest of the greedy fuckers in westminster has just been awarded a two grand per year pay rise.

^I was listening to the clueless David Lammy on a debate show the other morning on the topic of the knife crime epidemic & gang culture particularly among disaffected black youths.Lammy seemed to throw Brexit into the mix as one of the reasons to blame & seemed to imply anyone commiting a crime shouldn't be labelled a criminal. The truth is when there are people of the ilk/calibre of David Lammy (ie people who's brain & mouth don't engage with each other generally leading to some illogical rant where they end up talking bollocks) are supposed to be held up as a beacon of light by being elected & representing people of his constituency then no wonder politics is in gutter & most politicians are lying self-serving opportunists when apparently he's the best they have to offer.

Regarding Lammy's tweet about Stacey Dooley being a 'white saviour' because she was photographed on a Comic Relief project & the joke about Lammy in general is that he will always play the 'race card' on topics even when race isn't an issue.I'd even suggest there is a racist undertone to his tweet by implying that the poor & needy in the African countries that Comic Relief work in don't need help from 'white people' as that is what he implies.But surely if the people in these countries require help whether it be providing mosquito nets,installing water pipes,help building schools & hospitals etc the last thing the benefactors will be asking what is skin colour of the person helping out.And is David Lammy just unhappy with white people or 'white saviours' fronting Comic Relief projects or is he also sneering about white people donating their hard earned cash as well.I've helped out in several sponsored events in the past to raise money for Comic Relief & have helped raise over £1500 but should have I bothered in Lammy's eyes when he probably looks down his nose at people like me for being a 'white saviour'.

Comic Relief even came out & claimed they have asked David Lammy to help previously but he couldn't be bothered getting off his lardy arse to even reply back & I bet he probably hasn't parted with a penny of his own money for Comic Relief & if he did he'd probably only claim it back on expenses.And as Stacey replied back to him "Why don't you go over to Africa & help out yourself then!" certainly shut him up.But then again he's probably too busy pre-occupied being a keyboard warrior.I admit I do question at times certain celebrities when fronting charities are they actually doing it out of kindness or just trying to boost their media profile.I do get pretty disgusted when I've heard celebrities claiming a fee from the charities (Terry Wogan & Gabby Roslin apparently commanded a fee for presenting charity shows). But if anyone has seen Stacey Dooley's previous programmes where she has investigated paedophile gangs,criminal gangs,visited war torn areas etc can see she only has meaningful,good-hearted intentions.

Of the £115,714,071.33 claimed by all MPs in the last year, £87,410,593.62 (75%) is spent on salaries for their staff. Of the remaining 25% a lot of it goes on rent, utilities & general costs for their constituency offices. The idea that most of it goes to lining their pockets is a fabrication perpetuated by tabloid headlines about prats with moats who are not the general rule.

In the case of David Lammy of the £175,000 claimed, £152,000 of it was spent on salary for his staff, £1,619.35 was travel expenses and £0 on accommodation, £1,098 was spent on a return flight from Cape Town, having to leave early, after the murder of one of his Tottenham constituents

All MPs: https://www.mpsexpenses.info/#!/all

David Lammy MP: https://www.mpsexpenses.info/#!/mp/164

As for MPS wages I think in part why we have so many mediocre MPs and find ourselves with lack of leadership is because despite how much £79,000 might seem like a lot to the average person, it is not competitive with the private sector which tends to have a monopoly on talent. For the good MPs that we do have I give them enormous credit for being MPs in the first place because they could probably be pulling in six figures plus in the private sector no problem. What is ridiculous is the number of MPs we have. 650 for a country of 65m, there are 435 congressman in The US House of Representatives and another 100 Senators in the Senate, 535 for a nation with a population of 330m. Provided that the boundaries were redrawn by an independent third party so to avoid gerrymandering I would not be opposed to half the MPs with double the salary, in the hope that we would have a smaller, yet more talented parliament at the same overall cost perhaps with term limits as well

I've always believed that the old mantra about MP's not getting paid enough was a bit of a misnomer certainly when you put into context an MP's salary of approx £79,000 is more than 3 times the average salary & pays a lot more than nurses, firefighters, policemen/women & many highly skilled tradesmen like myself.I certainly can't think of another career that pays a salary excess of £75k & still be entitled to over 100 days holiday a year.And don't forget this is a baseline salary because if an MP takes up a cabinet position their salary then pays an excess of £110k a year when topped up. I fully acknowledge where certain MP's are trained solicitors or Human Rights lawyers then they could easily earn excess of £100k but those that have effectively been career politicians & never had a different job on the outside world less so.Plus how many MP's hold 2nd,3rd,4th + jobs like part-time executives,advisors & other positions for private companies etc.

And the truth is if us taxpayers consent to pay a salary to all MP's that's in parity with other public sector workers like bankers,lawyers etc would we suddenly get better qualified people or a better caliber MP applying for the job,in a word no.We'll still get incompetent people like Fiona Onasanya,Chris Grayling,Dianne Abbott (to name a few of many) still applying & holding the post of MP's & will effectively be rewarding incompetence with even more money.But hey I always thought that when people apply to become candidates & MP's it's never about the salary it's about giving back & representing their constituencies (or that's what they all usually say).

I've always agreed with the notion that the number of MP's (650 - the 10 Sinn Fein who never turn up to vote in the Commons) is too big & needs to be reduced but the whole point of re-drawing constituency boundaries was both to cut the number of MP's but also to ensure that MP's have equal sizes in population per constituency as at the moment certain MP's can have a constituency size of 10k people & others can have a constituency of over 100k people creating an unfairness at election time.

time for another civil war...lets chop all their heads of and put Harry in charge...

^I'm not sure a former member of One Direction would do a better job to be honest.

Jack the Nipper, fair enough you may well be right and I may well be wrong, there is nothing to say that it definitely will result in a better quality of MPs and if it did it would not be right away. I merely flouted it as an idea to be debated here, Parliament certainly does not have the Best of Britain within many of its benches and I wonder why that is.

Isabel Hardman, Deputy Editor of The Spectator, wrote a book entitled Why we Get the Wrong Politicians, I haven't read it but a quick google search shows that it is highly rated. Whilst many of the ratings are based on a small number of reviews, The Amazon rating of 4.3/5 is based on a more substantial 39 reviews. It might be worth a look.