27.10.2004

Put them on a worker's wage

After scandals over the perks and pay available for European parliamentarians and the above-inflation pay rise MPs voted themselves (not to mention a pension plan worth dying for), a parliamentary report issued last week revealed just how high MPs’ expenses are nowadays. For the first time, the figures for individual members were listed.

It costs the poor buggers no less than £78 million (£5 million up on last year) to discharge their parliamentary duties over and above their salaries. Luckily for them the taxpayer picks up the tab. Not surprisingly the press claimed they were riding on the good old gravy train and the public’s already low opinion of our legislators took another tumble. The reality is complex, with every single MP claiming a different expenses package relating to travel, attendance at events outside Westminster and office costs.

Of course there is lots of padding and some downright fraud and a few actually get caught - like Michael Trend (Tory, Westminster), who claimed for a non-existent house - although no other punishment is being exacted. The most usual reply from MPs when questioned about their expenses is exemplified by Claire Curtis-Thomas (Labour, Crosby), our most expensive representative at £168,889: “I’m worth every penny of it.” Indeed her only fault seems to be a tendency to claim as much as she can for everything, on top of which she is a mother of three young children and has to pop home several times a week to look after them.

Another common response is that, after all, the right honourable ladies and gentlemen could earn far more in business. I heard one Labour spokesperson claiming on air he was £300,000 out of pocket as a result of his personal honesty and commitment to serve in parliament. These people are just not used to scrimping and scraping like the rest of us. They live in a different world, with different priorities, and therefore seek different solutions. Some MPs like Dennis Skinner (Labour, Bolsover), who takes the least at £71,020, consciously try to maintain contact with their working class roots, but this is on an individual, isolated basis and runs counter to the mores of the Westminster club.

Radicals and socialists have long struggled with the problem of the inevitable danger of the “transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society” (K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 27, London 1990, p23). The answer came with the Paris Commune in 1871. One of the safeguards implemented by the Commune was that all officials were paid “only the wages received by other workers”. In this way, said Frederick Engels, “an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up”. The Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution were forced by circumstances to waive the equalitarianism in relation to the bourgeois experts they had to employ, but they certainly applied it to themselves - and not only when it came to wages. Top leaders had to share apartments, bathrooms and kitchens like everyone else and this continued up until the Stalinite counterrevolution.

The Socialist Alliance happily voted to continue this tradition and the Scottish Socialist Party has proudly put it into practice without running into any political difficulties. However, the Socialist Workers Party rules it out for Respect because, it is claimed, the principle of a worker’s wage is socialist and Respect is not a socialist party and cannot be allowed to become one ‘at this stage’. Well, actually it is put forward by socialists as a democratic demand in order to counteract such obscenities as the Westminster gravy train. The fact that non-socialists such as Anas Altikriti of the Muslim Association of Britain can understand perfectly well what is meant by a worker’s wage and even come out in support of it demonstrates the point more than adequately.

The SWP argument is specious, but reflects a grubby reality within Respect. Namely that the party is hoping to build itself through the success of celebrity supporters and these people cannot be offended or in any way discouraged. Take Yvonne Ridley, who thought that a wage of a ‘mere’ £57,485 would not be enough. “Give me three or four times as much,” she said (Weekly Worker July 1). Perhaps she is unaware of the generous expenses available and thinks she would have to fund her good deeds from her own pocket. Or perhaps not. But let us stress once again, the principle of accepting only the equivalent of a skilled worker’s wage, and (since we are not yet in a position to legally enforce such a measure on all elected representatives) returning the surplus to the party or movement, applies only to an MP’s salary, not to legitimate expenses.

Of course, not all such expenses can be claimed from the exchequer. George Galloway, Respect’s only sitting MP (whose expenses claim of £107,593 actually puts him towards the bottom of the Scottish list), takes the view that he needs a minimum of £150,000 “to function properly as a leading figure in a part of the British political system”.

Here he is making a valid political statement as to how expensive it is to play an effective role in British politics as an individual MP. Precisely why expenditure incurred for general political purposes by working class politicians should be brought under party control. But comrade Galloway does not want to relinquish control. In one sense we can understand why. Ask yourself, if you were George Galloway, would you hand your money over to the SWP and let them decide your political priorities for you? All the more reason for establishing Respect itself on a fully democratic and accountable basis.