Let's pay MPs more

I'm in favour of paying MPs a decent salary. I think the current pay level of £66,000 is far too low compared to the pay rates of other professionals like doctors or lawyers. It certainly doesn't represent the level of responsibility MPs have. And if MPs are not professionals, in your opinion, could that be because of the way we pay them? Riddle me that! I don't compare their salaries with those of bankers, because the latter are a shower of thieving bastards who live in some fantasy world unrelated to ours. You may think that also applies to some MPs but I couldn't possibly comment. No, I want MPs to live in our world, so I want to attach a few conditions to them getting a really big pay rise:

1 They have to have worked. I don't mean been a research wonk or a speech-writer who has gone from school to university to the offices of a political party. A real job, where they have to get up at 6.30am, fight their way through the traffic and spend every day from Monday to Friday - and sometimes weekends too - in a place of work run by someone else who gives orders they may not like but have to follow.

2 They have to have just one job while they are in parliament. Never mind this 'how will they keep in touch with their professional life?' as QCs or hedge fund managers. If they are MPs, that's the job they do.

3 They get the same holiday entitlement, pensions rights and severance pay as any other professional employed by the state. They pay for their own food and drink in parliament at the prices the rest of us have to pay in the outside world. They also get the same travel expenses as we do.

4 They are entitled to one home - in their constituency. If they need a place to live in London as well as in their constituency, they can be lodged free of charge in a Premier Inn type place near Westminster.

5 Their interns and office staff have to be recruited from outside parliament and paid a reasonable salary. No employing relatives or letting interns depend on the bank of mum and dad for survival. Recruitment should be independent and as fair as possible. Quotas could even be used to ensure a balance of male-female, race and religious representation among staff - even if that looks like a step too far for the selection of MPs.

6 After they give up or lose their parliamentary seat, MPs are barred from taking any kind of directorship in any business for five years. If they are receiving a pension from parliament, they should have it suspended if they start a new job and only paid again when they retire for real. No one should become rich from being an MP.

And while I'm at it, I think we should finance political parties too. No more union backing for Labour or big donations to the Tories from people who expect special treatment such as peerages. And while I'm about it, I would totally reform the house of lords and make it into a real senate with people who truly represent us, not themselves or political parties.