The real cost of our MPs: £1m a day

Now that they've been caught fiddling their expenses, our MPs have come up with new and more subtle ways of filling their bank accounts. First, they want us to give them each about £23,000 a year, tax-free, for their supposed 'expenses' without having to show any receipts. Second, in exchange for allowing a supposedly ‘independent’ body to set their salaries, they are demanding a pay increase of around £15,000 a year.

Yet while pleading poverty, our MPs seem to forget that they already receive more than £60,000 a year for just 34 weeks’ work and enjoy the most generous pension scheme in Britain. An ordinary person would have to put an incredible £50,000 each year into their pension savings to receive the same pension benefits as an MP.