Apparently in Washington DC six senators share a house and it is like the ultimate man cave with pool tables, juke boxes the works.

In this day and age the MPs should be able to work from home. It'll save loads of money on second home and travel expenses, and give them more time in their constituency.

For all those who want MPs to be paid less....

Let them only work 9-5 and not actually have to go to London to represent you. Then you can pay them £20K.

As it stands, MPs work ridiculously long hours keeping up with constituents, travelling to and from London, participating in Standing and Select committees, attending the House of Commons (which can include late-night sessions for important bills) etc. It's not uncommon for an MP to put in 80 hours a week.

The amount of effort most MPs (admittedly not all) will put in is, frankly, incredible and I think they fully deserve at least £65K. Sure tighten the expenses system to stop abuse, but anyone who calls for an MP to be paid £30K is frankly living in dream land.

But are they as kinky as our lot?

It does depend on the MP. I have been lucky. The MP's who have represented my constituency have worked very hard for his constituents, that is both Tory and Labour. Though the previous Hove Labour MP was not that good because he stood down because he was frankly pissed off with the problems of his constituents. Yes they do work very hard, and put in long hours. Some really do deserve even more money. Though I would prefer greater funds for their office who do a lot of the work of the MP, such as writing letters on behalf of constituents. Maybe a compromise is that MPs without secondary income can get a additional supplement. So any consultancy work will preclude them from the top up.

Well lets put it this way our current one's wife's dies after a long fight against cancer he was caught having an affair with his secretary during his wifes battle with Cancer and married his gf a couple of weeks after his wifes death.

mmmmmmmmmm I wonder if he will be re elected

Interesting, would you hire an employee based on their personal life?

Legally, there's not much you can do about it, but left to me...

Ernie, given the sheer number of women you would like to get into bed (successfully or otherwise ) I question whether you yourself would ever find work in such a system.

I think that he was miffed at not being used by Mrs Robinson.

Actually I never go near women who have partners, it's a conscience thing and I wish it wasn't , but it keeps me out of trouble... I'd have shagged Iris just to p1ss off her scumbag of a husband though

I don't think MP's pay (excluding benefits and allowances) is excessive but I'd fully support linking it either to the civil service pay system and/or the national minimum wage. In no way should MP's be allowed to vote themselves pay rises. They can't even do that in the private sector (well, not officially anyway, the less I say about my opinion of the relationships between boards of directors and benefits/remuneration committees the better).

Given how much property the state owns in London I doubt it would be difficult to convert some of it into accommodation for MP's. I suspect it would end up a bit like Uni halls but if it was cost effective for Tax Payers then so be it. By all means have more than one residence (so that the parties could be split up) and it would make it a more distributed target for terror attacks.

I'm not actually so sure about remote working. Even today there are still things that work best in face to face meetings. Video conferences can be a good substitute but there is something special about sitting down in the same room as the people you are debating with.
I'd be more in favour of moving parliament to a more central location in order to minimise travelling distance. Houses of Parliament in Birmingham (or the geographical centre of the UK) anyone? That could also have the advantage of removing the London centric tendencies of government.

Travel comes basically comes down to the hours we want MP's to work. For the salary they currently get I expect them to put in more than the standard 9 - 5. On that basis they need to have the facilities to work while they are travelling and that means the option of first class train or business class air travel. They should have to be able to demonstrate they were actually working on the journey in order to qualify for re-reimbursement of the fare however. No proof, no refund on the additional cost.

I think that while the minimum wage is a good link, it has the benefit of helping the low paid. I would longer term like to see a special inflation index for low income users, this could be used to set the state pension and minimum wage. As this rate is quite a bit higher than the main inflation rate it would mean that the MP's getting a really big percentage increase over time. Maybe it would be better to set it to a multiple of the median wage. Say five times median wages. Now since this has not gone up anywhere near as fast as inflation in the last decade it could hold back MP's wages, It would actually give them an incentive to help the working person for once.

Known Pedo or wife beater or rapist would you ?

All I'm saying is no intention of voting him back in because of his behaviour.

That would be in Dunsop Bridge, Lancashire.

If you exclude the islands, the centroid moves south to Whalley.

Frankly it's about time Lancashire got something out of London instead of continually getting shafted.