Having worked in the NHS, I am sympathetic to MPs.
Anyone being paid from the public purse has to washer whiter than white, and it can be galling.
People get so riled up about waste, corruption, overspending etc etc and most of it is media driven (ie very selective reporting) and to be frank, things that they wouldn't think about for a second if they happened in their own companies.
There's this idea that if "the taxpayer" pays for something, job conditions should be pared down until the job is barely tenable. Funnily enough, the taxpayer also pays the salaries of every employee in the country, one way or another. My former boss Charles Dunstone (Carphone Warehouse) would not have a salary unless people bought his phones. Yes, it's a choice, and that is the big difference, but to those who work under him, on a godforsaken industrial estate in North London, on barely a living wage, while he has a personal helicopter, it doesn't feel all that great. People don't stop buying his phones because he is a fat cat - and I'm not saying they should.
Anyway.
The Benns came out of this well. Of course. Maybe we should clone them.
Quote:
Five questions Benn insists should be asked of any powerful person:
What power have you got?
Where did you get it from?
In whose interests do you use it?
To whom are you accountable?
How do we get rid of you?
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