I agree and I’ve been saying the same for years in particular related to MPs…. We pay peanuts and wonder we get monkeys.
I’d love to see a Jim Ratcliffe or the like as our PM but why would they want to go into our toxic political system. Am I alone in thinking there’s no big beasts now like there used to be?
That brings me to the next point…. Our media are risible and the current low rent gotcha mentality be it on red, yellow or blue is painful to watch.
Finally, Starmer should’ve known better but they can’t resist it. For the last 20 years of my career accepting any hospitality was banned. I couldn’t even pick up a pen. U.K. politics should be the same.
I think the "big beasts" thing may just be us all getting old .. for example when Blair took over in 1997 then there weren't a lot of people with ministerial experience in the Cabinet for obvious reasons, but in retrospect you don't really remember that.
I'm not sure the pay and glasses are linked. If his reported wealth is correct then accepting trivial sums seems an error of judgement.
IMHO the problem actually starts with MPs.
As far as I can work out they really have two roles, to read and vote on legislation and that of casework. There seem to be far too many MPs for the national press to really hold them to account. So the quality of their casework varies massively and the median voter has little experience with this and tends to vote on who they want to lead the country. Worse safe constituencies seem to be used as rewards internally with candidates being parachuted into them.
MPs clearly don't read or understand the legislation they are passing, one has only to look at the 5p tax where it only came out a year later that MPs realized what they had voted for.
Sure, I was going to make the broader point that I don't think the higher pay really has the effect we would hope. I seen traders be paid 7 figures and still get swayed by brokers picking up a dinner and bar tab. Maybe the Singapore example does generalise, and maybe it works very well in developing countries where the relative difference is higher. If the PM were payed 500k a year I don't think it would make a difference whether they accepted wall paper, free glasses, etc. I think its just a question of judgement a character. Mandelson was being very well paid by the EU, and paying no tax, and he was still having dinners with Russian oligarch's on their yachts, which he shouldn't be.
I heartily agree. Many voters, understandably, have little idea about top-end salaries, but perhaps it would help them think about what we pay our political leaders if they knew that in a medium-sized business employing - say - 500 people, it would be perfectly normal to have 5 or more people being paid more than the PM. I’m not even beginning to suggest we compete with the top of the private sector: the CEO of Tesco, for instance, enjoys an 8-figure annual income, with clearly much less responsibility, and arguably more job security (!) than the PM.
There is a bigger point here about public sector salaries generally. The government is cracking down on consultants as a cost-saving. But in skilled realms such as technology, civil service salaries do not begin to compete with private sector employers, with the result that if you need seasoned tech input, you will have to go outside the service to find it. The same would be true in, for instance, procurement. Gus O’Donnell, in a thoughtful interview with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell recently, cited the ‘crazy restrictions’ on public sector pay as the first thing he’d change if given a free hand to improve things.
1. The PM gets a range of benefits that have the effect of substantially increasing overall comp, especially free rent of a large flat in central London and a big country estate, a driver and a car. Those have to be worth several hundred k. And it’s not uncommon for top leaders to have a comp structure in which base pay is only one component (although it’s normally RSUs and LTIPs rather than Chequers…)
2. All of this is driven by idiot press, in my view. It’s totally pernicious. I’ve long thought MPs should be paid substantially more and should also have a flat in a state-owned corporate block in central London, as well as a state-provided and staffed office, and if they want something different, they should fund it themselves. But the Mail would never wear it. Similarly, health service managers are paid peanuts by comparison with private sector managers, even at CEO level. A CEO of a large trust earns a lot less than, say, a CEO of a FTSE 250. Again, the Mail would have conniptions at managers being paid more. They prefer badly paid, overstretched and demotivated managers and in my darker moments, I suspect this is not least because it means they have an endless source of stories when some of those managers stuff things up.
I think that's fair. I do wonder how much of a perk Downing Street feels like though - I could imagine that it just means you're never able to properly switch off from work, and feel on public display all the time. A bit like having to stay in hotels on a work trip, I'd imagine the novelty wears off after a while
I feel like this is not a question that can really be thought about in terms of the normal economic laws of supply and demand, because the role of Prime Minister is kinda sui generis. There's only one of them at a time, and whether the salary is £160k or £300k, that salary is going to be very far down the motivations of anyone actually wanting to become Prime Minister.
Certainly, £160k is enough that you should never have financial worries, even disregarding that many PMs were either born into wealth or had lucrative pre-politics careers. I agree that the salary shouldn't be so low that it excludes those who don't have preexisting wealth, but £160k is quite clearly not such a salary.
It is indeed absurd that Keir Starmer is paid less than the Match Of The Day pundits, but - hear me out here - maybe Micah Richards is really overpaid, instead of Keir Starmer being underpaid.
I'm not particularly averse to the idea of politicians being paid more - as you note it's a tiny fraction of the national budget - but I doubt that any salary would make the role of PM a highly desirable one to successful but normal and not-politically-obsessed people. There are other things that make Westminster politics unappealing to those with achievements elsewhere.
If you wanted to make a case for politicians being paid more, local councillors would be a good place to start. Ideally the councillor's salary should be about £30k, enough to live on; as it is, we expect councillors to juggle caring for their local communities with another full-time job, which shows just how (un)seriously local democracy is taken in this country.
I think the MotD thing is one example (I was thinking of Shearer not Richards, but the same point applies). But I think the comparison with the senior NHS people is a valid one, and I deliberately didn't go with the biggest trusts - that spreadsheet I linked reckons £250k is the median for the Chief Executive of a really large trust, so it seems hard to argue that should be paid more than the person for whom the buck stops overall with the NHS (and lots of other things besides, plus probably less job security!)
Like other commenters, I agree we should increase pay for the PM, and Ministers, which I've been saying for years, but I'd make it part of a wider Crown Service reform (MPs are as much Crown Servants as the Civil Service, Armed Forces, Police, and Judiciary):
- Create a common pay spine, define that the Top Point is only for the Prime Minister, and "strongly suggest" the Wider Public Sector (WPS: NHS, Local Authorities, Schools, ...) should follow that, too
- Go back to the pre-1996 system of pegging Ministers and MPs salaries to specific Civil Service grades, which one suspects may have a collateral effect of reducing the zeal for pay freezes
- Go back to the pre-1996 system of pegging MPs' Conditions and Allowances to the Civil Service rules (restoring a common "Estacode", as there's been some drift since delegation was given to Departments), which would impose strict limits on Gifts and Hospitality, and avoid inexplicable Expenses stories like Moats and Duck Houses
In fact, I think MP salaries aren't quite so out of whack (they got 10% in 2015, so they're a bit below what the BoE calculator would suggest, but nothing so drastic)
My "pegging" comment -- which I'd retcon to Anchoring if I could edit this, due to unfortunate connotations -- was more to do with hobbling future tinkering, than any particular views as to quanta
It may be the reason Brexiteer MPs were so keen on turning the UK into Singapore is the huge ($1m+) salaries paid to the executive branch (though those people were chosen on merit, which would have made ours ineligible).
But PM/Ministerial pay is mad for the responsibilities they hold, which has (partly) led to much scandal and corruption. The MP expenses scandal led to making it even harder to raise salaries, yet it was (mostly) caused by internal briefings to MPs that due to their lack of justifiable pay increases (politically tricky at the time) a blind eye would be turned to a bit of creativity with their expenses.
I agree a million would be a stretch. But yes, it doesn't seem healthy that we are essentially punishing our current MPs for the sins of their predecessors 15 years ago! (And in general "they're all rubbish, they don't deserve more" feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy)
I'm broadly in agreement here, Oliver. However, the poor salary is most definitely offset by the speaking and consultancy fees a prolonged term as Prime Minister can bring. Even the woeful and truncated tenure that Liz Truss put us through has netted her £250,000 in speaking fees. And ex-PMs also get to claim a huge allowance only allowed for former premiers – of another £115,000 a year – to help pay for office and extra security. Given PMs are usually already financially independent, the strongest incentives, even for the most egotistical and self-absorbed (Boris Johnson, I'm looking at you), remain that of legacy and reputation.
I agree and I’ve been saying the same for years in particular related to MPs…. We pay peanuts and wonder we get monkeys.
I’d love to see a Jim Ratcliffe or the like as our PM but why would they want to go into our toxic political system. Am I alone in thinking there’s no big beasts now like there used to be?
That brings me to the next point…. Our media are risible and the current low rent gotcha mentality be it on red, yellow or blue is painful to watch.
Finally, Starmer should’ve known better but they can’t resist it. For the last 20 years of my career accepting any hospitality was banned. I couldn’t even pick up a pen. U.K. politics should be the same.
I think the "big beasts" thing may just be us all getting old .. for example when Blair took over in 1997 then there weren't a lot of people with ministerial experience in the Cabinet for obvious reasons, but in retrospect you don't really remember that.
I'm not sure the pay and glasses are linked. If his reported wealth is correct then accepting trivial sums seems an error of judgement.
IMHO the problem actually starts with MPs.
As far as I can work out they really have two roles, to read and vote on legislation and that of casework. There seem to be far too many MPs for the national press to really hold them to account. So the quality of their casework varies massively and the median voter has little experience with this and tends to vote on who they want to lead the country. Worse safe constituencies seem to be used as rewards internally with candidates being parachuted into them.
MPs clearly don't read or understand the legislation they are passing, one has only to look at the 5p tax where it only came out a year later that MPs realized what they had voted for.
I'm absolutely not defending him on the glasses and clothes thing, it just seems silly to leave a hostage to fortune like that.
Sure, I was going to make the broader point that I don't think the higher pay really has the effect we would hope. I seen traders be paid 7 figures and still get swayed by brokers picking up a dinner and bar tab. Maybe the Singapore example does generalise, and maybe it works very well in developing countries where the relative difference is higher. If the PM were payed 500k a year I don't think it would make a difference whether they accepted wall paper, free glasses, etc. I think its just a question of judgement a character. Mandelson was being very well paid by the EU, and paying no tax, and he was still having dinners with Russian oligarch's on their yachts, which he shouldn't be.
I heartily agree. Many voters, understandably, have little idea about top-end salaries, but perhaps it would help them think about what we pay our political leaders if they knew that in a medium-sized business employing - say - 500 people, it would be perfectly normal to have 5 or more people being paid more than the PM. I’m not even beginning to suggest we compete with the top of the private sector: the CEO of Tesco, for instance, enjoys an 8-figure annual income, with clearly much less responsibility, and arguably more job security (!) than the PM.
There is a bigger point here about public sector salaries generally. The government is cracking down on consultants as a cost-saving. But in skilled realms such as technology, civil service salaries do not begin to compete with private sector employers, with the result that if you need seasoned tech input, you will have to go outside the service to find it. The same would be true in, for instance, procurement. Gus O’Donnell, in a thoughtful interview with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell recently, cited the ‘crazy restrictions’ on public sector pay as the first thing he’d change if given a free hand to improve things.
Broadly agree. A couple of points, though:
1. The PM gets a range of benefits that have the effect of substantially increasing overall comp, especially free rent of a large flat in central London and a big country estate, a driver and a car. Those have to be worth several hundred k. And it’s not uncommon for top leaders to have a comp structure in which base pay is only one component (although it’s normally RSUs and LTIPs rather than Chequers…)
2. All of this is driven by idiot press, in my view. It’s totally pernicious. I’ve long thought MPs should be paid substantially more and should also have a flat in a state-owned corporate block in central London, as well as a state-provided and staffed office, and if they want something different, they should fund it themselves. But the Mail would never wear it. Similarly, health service managers are paid peanuts by comparison with private sector managers, even at CEO level. A CEO of a large trust earns a lot less than, say, a CEO of a FTSE 250. Again, the Mail would have conniptions at managers being paid more. They prefer badly paid, overstretched and demotivated managers and in my darker moments, I suspect this is not least because it means they have an endless source of stories when some of those managers stuff things up.
I think that's fair. I do wonder how much of a perk Downing Street feels like though - I could imagine that it just means you're never able to properly switch off from work, and feel on public display all the time. A bit like having to stay in hotels on a work trip, I'd imagine the novelty wears off after a while
I feel like this is not a question that can really be thought about in terms of the normal economic laws of supply and demand, because the role of Prime Minister is kinda sui generis. There's only one of them at a time, and whether the salary is £160k or £300k, that salary is going to be very far down the motivations of anyone actually wanting to become Prime Minister.
Certainly, £160k is enough that you should never have financial worries, even disregarding that many PMs were either born into wealth or had lucrative pre-politics careers. I agree that the salary shouldn't be so low that it excludes those who don't have preexisting wealth, but £160k is quite clearly not such a salary.
It is indeed absurd that Keir Starmer is paid less than the Match Of The Day pundits, but - hear me out here - maybe Micah Richards is really overpaid, instead of Keir Starmer being underpaid.
I'm not particularly averse to the idea of politicians being paid more - as you note it's a tiny fraction of the national budget - but I doubt that any salary would make the role of PM a highly desirable one to successful but normal and not-politically-obsessed people. There are other things that make Westminster politics unappealing to those with achievements elsewhere.
If you wanted to make a case for politicians being paid more, local councillors would be a good place to start. Ideally the councillor's salary should be about £30k, enough to live on; as it is, we expect councillors to juggle caring for their local communities with another full-time job, which shows just how (un)seriously local democracy is taken in this country.
I think the MotD thing is one example (I was thinking of Shearer not Richards, but the same point applies). But I think the comparison with the senior NHS people is a valid one, and I deliberately didn't go with the biggest trusts - that spreadsheet I linked reckons £250k is the median for the Chief Executive of a really large trust, so it seems hard to argue that should be paid more than the person for whom the buck stops overall with the NHS (and lots of other things besides, plus probably less job security!)
Like other commenters, I agree we should increase pay for the PM, and Ministers, which I've been saying for years, but I'd make it part of a wider Crown Service reform (MPs are as much Crown Servants as the Civil Service, Armed Forces, Police, and Judiciary):
- Create a common pay spine, define that the Top Point is only for the Prime Minister, and "strongly suggest" the Wider Public Sector (WPS: NHS, Local Authorities, Schools, ...) should follow that, too
- Go back to the pre-1996 system of pegging Ministers and MPs salaries to specific Civil Service grades, which one suspects may have a collateral effect of reducing the zeal for pay freezes
- Go back to the pre-1996 system of pegging MPs' Conditions and Allowances to the Civil Service rules (restoring a common "Estacode", as there's been some drift since delegation was given to Departments), which would impose strict limits on Gifts and Hospitality, and avoid inexplicable Expenses stories like Moats and Duck Houses
In fact, I think MP salaries aren't quite so out of whack (they got 10% in 2015, so they're a bit below what the BoE calculator would suggest, but nothing so drastic)
My "pegging" comment -- which I'd retcon to Anchoring if I could edit this, due to unfortunate connotations -- was more to do with hobbling future tinkering, than any particular views as to quanta
It may be the reason Brexiteer MPs were so keen on turning the UK into Singapore is the huge ($1m+) salaries paid to the executive branch (though those people were chosen on merit, which would have made ours ineligible).
But PM/Ministerial pay is mad for the responsibilities they hold, which has (partly) led to much scandal and corruption. The MP expenses scandal led to making it even harder to raise salaries, yet it was (mostly) caused by internal briefings to MPs that due to their lack of justifiable pay increases (politically tricky at the time) a blind eye would be turned to a bit of creativity with their expenses.
I agree a million would be a stretch. But yes, it doesn't seem healthy that we are essentially punishing our current MPs for the sins of their predecessors 15 years ago! (And in general "they're all rubbish, they don't deserve more" feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy)
I'm broadly in agreement here, Oliver. However, the poor salary is most definitely offset by the speaking and consultancy fees a prolonged term as Prime Minister can bring. Even the woeful and truncated tenure that Liz Truss put us through has netted her £250,000 in speaking fees. And ex-PMs also get to claim a huge allowance only allowed for former premiers – of another £115,000 a year – to help pay for office and extra security. Given PMs are usually already financially independent, the strongest incentives, even for the most egotistical and self-absorbed (Boris Johnson, I'm looking at you), remain that of legacy and reputation.
That's fair to some extent - though I think the allowance is meant to cover costs not be salary directly. And it's interesting that for example Prime Ministerial memoirs haven't been a huge money-spinner in recent years https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/26/liz-truss-book-first-week-sales-bestseller-list
I don't believe the amount of moneys available for the role of pm makes any difference to the people who desire or are capable and willing to do it