When is a Public Servant Not a Public Servant?

You probably think that MPs work for us. You know us, the people who pay the taxes that pay their salaries; MPs are public servants. Of course there are some who seem to work more for themselves. One such MP is John Prescott, our former Deputy PM, who on 27 August last year announced that he would not stand for re-election as an MP at the next election. Surely he should still be working hard at the job we're paying him to do?

Tomorrow on BBC, that's the lot who we pay our licence fees to, has a TV programme at 9 p.m. which John Prescott the MP for Kingston Upon Hull East is presenting, called 'Prescott on Class' in which he examines the class system in Britain. Now it's all a jolly good wheeze isn't it having that longtime critic of the upper classes doing a programme like this, but should he be?

Surely he should be doing his job as an MP for which he draws a pretty nice salary of around £63,000. Instead he's been off filming, along with his wife, and he's been paid between £30,002 and £40,000 by Tiger Aspect Films, that company have of course been paid by the BBC, that have been paid by us. His wife is also appearing on the programme, I expect she also gets paid as well.

And then there's the book what he wrote. . .For which he was paid between £176,0004 and £200,000 by the publisher in four payments over the last year.

Not too surprisingly he has spoken in no debates in the last year and voted well below the average in debates in parliament. (See Here)

The fact is he's happy to keep drawing the salary, and do bugger all for it. He's a another who highlights all that is wrong in our system, where self aggrandisement and self seeking individuals seem content to tell the rest of us what to do, but don't seam too keen on doing it themselves.