MP's Pay

There has been a lot of nonsense regarding MP's salary with the vast majority wanting larger ones. If MPs want to be rich then they should get another job instead of running the country. However it appears that they want to do both. Because it is so much more lucrative being in business and at the same time able to influence the laws that affect your profitability.

Their income should be more representative of the country as a whole or their mandate from their constituents. 2 suggestions:

1) Pay all of them median incomes. At least there will be more incentive to increase incomes of the larger proportion of people earning less as opposed to just looking after top earners.

2) Pay them based on % of eligible voters they gained a mandate from. Those gaining 90% can have 86K while those having the smallest of mandates get minimum wage. It will create an incentive to stop running politics on a minority of seats and encourage them to find ways of appealing to those who do not currently vote.

In both cases there should be no consultation fees, no second job, no interest in a third party business.In addition, they can't be an MP if all they've done is an Oxford PPE and a parliamentary researcher's job. Having had a 'real' job somewhere doing something outside of politics ought to be a prerequisite.