MPs: perfect panto villains

THE FRIDAY THING: IT is panto time, and while it can never match the festive magic served up by Oldham Coliseum, one of the best shows will be appearing in Westminster.

Yes, it’s the annual MPs’ panto, about whether they should be Prince Charming or Baron Hardup.

I know where my bet will go.

In this panto, it’s all about heroes becoming villains and villains becoming heroes. The heroes are those MPs angry and disgusted they are being offered a no-doubt thoroughly deserved pay rise from an already generous £66,396 to a much more comforting £74,000. There are plenty of baddies waiting in the wings to get their hands on the extra dosh in a salary that is already three times the average wage.

When questioned anonymously about the MPs’ upcoming pay rise, 69 per cent of those questioned said they deserved a pay rise and judged their worth at £86,000 a year. Some put the figure at more than £95,000.

Ministers, of course, fare even better and earn a minimum of £134,000 a year - on top of any income from business interests.

When Chancellor George Osborne said we were “all in it together”, did he mean we could share in the pot of gold buried at the beanstalk’s base, so you think? Probably not.

Even as the economy begins to improve, we still have thousands on poverty wages, who can’t get a job or, by all accounts, are working for local and central government and about to lose their job.

Against this background, it is difficult to see how IPSA, the body that decides on MPs’ wages, could come up with such mind-blowing salary figures for people who already do very nicely, thanks.



FINAL WORD: I KNOW the law can be an ass, but does that mean it would approve of or accept a not-guilty plea for anyone who, in broad daylight and surrounded by witnesses, first ran over and then took a machete to hack at the body of the victim?
Michael Adebolajo insists that the attack on Fusilier Lee Rigby was an act of war and was justified because he is a soldier of Allah.
We surely have the right to question whether any god would sanction or approve of such behaviour.