You have to feel sorry for MPs don't you? I mean there they are, struggling away on their £66,000 salaries, barely able to make ends meet, constantly working for our country while 'scroungers' and 'shirkers' just sit around watching the world waste away at their nine-to-five, or even longer day jobs. Unlike those shameless everyday people, these MPs have to suffer and worry about their personal monetary concerns as their travel, living accommodation and most food and drink are all paid for by the taxpayer.
Lord only knows how they don't die of stress and overworking when they have 12 weeks of holiday a year, which is only two months more than your normal, no doubt lazy, pleb. They must be exhausted! Why else would they keep sleeping in the House of Commons or not show up at all for most debates?
So with all that to bear, how on Earth are we expected to make them deal with all our insignificant concerns when they have to spend time working in several other jobs which pay them such pitiful amounts that even when combined with their nothing of an MP salary mean they can't yet buy an island, or the moon? How can they run the country when they don't even own the chunk of rock that orbits the planet? I mean, it doesn't bear thinking about does it?
Which is why I'm fully in support of MPs having their salaries raised by 15%, which is of course, totally in line with all the cuts we need to make to economy healthy, as Osborne stated in his burger fuelled spending review. Public sector pay rises have been limited to just 1% for 2015-16, so MPs' salaries going up 14% more than that seems to make total sense. That old Conservative catchphrase of 'We're All In This Together' has never felt more appropriate. We, the people take cuts, they take extra money. It's basically exactly the same thing, albeit being completely and utterly different. I think such a move will make the voting public just want to show their support for this sort of movement even more by further failing to turn up to polling stations on voting days. This will show that they don't mind this sort of thing so much, they won't make any sort of stand against or for it, as it goes without saying.
Personally, it's not enough for me. I think to really connect with Joe Bloggs, these MPs should go out of their way to go on reality TV shows instead of meeting their constituents, actively advertise that for various sums of money they can lobby motions in Parliament, and at all costs make sure the companies they have investments manage to purchase as much of the public sector as possible. Then people like me - who currently, as I write this, I'm waiting to be paid by six different employers and have spent the last two weeks really worrying about being able to buy food - will look to these MPs who haven't quite got enough money to fill their swimming pools properly, and say, we are definitely kindred spirits. All those who due to 'laziness' have been unable to find one of the jobs that isn't there and doesn't exist, or who's benefits have been cut because they dared to be alive, will be able to say: "See that man who's in Canada while our city is on fire and is really sad he has to bother to do something about it? He's basically brethren to me he is."
Of course, there are some dissenters to this humane ideology. Nick Clegg says he wouldn't take a pay rise for MPs, which I'm sure he absolutely 100% means. For at least a week. Meanwhile David Cameron has said that such a salary rise is "unthinkable". Although that could be more of a comment on his lack of imagination, as he's also said he wouldn't be able to prevent it happening. Of course he can't. He's the prime minister, the most powerful job in the UK. Which is exactly why he has no control over all the things he has totally and utterly has control over also including tax loopholes and bankers' bonuses. It must be horrible to know that you are so in charge of things, you even stop yourself having any responsibility over some of them.
Despite these two voices of really minor, not-really-trying-but-feel-they-have-to-say-it protest, hopefully this MP salary increase will still happen. With any luck they'll be given even more money than that, helping them to buy lasers and huge thrones. Then we'll get Parliament to change the title from Member of Parliament to 'Overlords of the Peons' and allow them one day a week to fire air guns from the top of the Shard at those they think look most upsettingly impoverished. That way, it'll be just like our mates are in charge. That way, we'll know that when they make decisions about benefit cuts and people living on say, £53 a week, we'll know that they understand exactly what's meant by 'living within your means'. And it means that we should probably all emigrate or start polishing those old French guillotines.