The worst thing that can happen to an MP

The Punch editorial for 28th October 1964 was mostly about the sudden stepping down of Nikita Khrushchev, musings on Communism & the fate of Soviet politicians. (Bernard Hollowood was editor).

Some of it is very pertinent on 13th October 2009:

We complain in the West that politics have become so dowdy that they now attract only second rate citizens. But there is still some pride in the calling.

MPs are horribly insecure & badly paid – even when, as with Mr Wilson’s team, nearly one third of the party manages to get into the Government.

Even so, the worst that can happen to an MP is that he becomes an ex-MP.

There is no disgrace in the demotion; often he lives to fight & fight again ….


There then follows a list of all the openings available to allow an ex-MP to maintain HIS status, profession, position.

Many MPs today might be secretly hoping that they will lose their seat in the coming election.


I could also describe myself as a retired civil servant, though I do not think that that qualifies me to set an arbitrary limit for a reasonable amount for an MP to pay a cleaner. I can say that 20 years ago I paid about £1000 a year (2 mornings or 6 hours a week) for someone to clean the house, & more importantly keep a general eye on things while I was away working. If I were to do the same now, paying just the minimum wage, it would take up nearly all of the amount which Sir Thomas Legg considers reasonable (even in London), for a presumably larger house, larger family & more entertaining.

The cynic in me thinks that the amount was settled after careful exploration of the implications, with an eye kept particularly on the consequences for the Prime Minister.

$20,000 (as BBC World Service puts it) makes a nice round number to be ordered to repay. Gives more grease to his elbow when he says all MPs should pay up.

I do hope that neither he nor his family have to go without while he meets this sudden demand for cash.

Having this kind of public humiliation by retrospective regulation to go through still doesn’t approach the worst thing that could happen to a Soviet politician but it hardly dignifies our constitution

Links
BBC ON THIS DAY 15 1964: Khrushchev 'retires' as head of USSR
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, Dictator of the Month, October, 2003

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