Who wants to be a politician? Still many people, is the short answer, but the longer answer is more complex, and that long answer has become deeply intertwined with the issue of how much politicians are paid.

A fortnight ago, on these pages, my friend Adam Tomkins, the former Tory MSP, made a compelling argument for a novel change in the way MPs and MSPs are remunerated. Using the model of the House of Lords, which is a part-time legislature full of part-time legislators who have other jobs, he argued that MPs and MSPs should be required to have a second job.

The Lords, Adam argued, makes better law than the Commons or the Scottish Parliament precisely because its members have more experience of life and work outside of the political bubble.

Now, I cannot get on board with Adam’s support for the House of Lords as an institution. I have a fundamentalist view that an unelected legislature does not belong in a democracy. But what I can get on board with is his view that the rounded experience of those in the Lords makes them better legislators than their elected counterparts.

Our parliaments are increasingly being filled by what the public might call career politicians; in other words those who, from the moment they step out of university, go to work for an MP or MSP or an associated campaign, perhaps do some time in a party research department, stand in a series of unwinnable seats either at local or national level, and eventually persuade the party members that they are worthy of being placed either into a safe constituency seat, or high up a regional list.

are many exceptions, of course, and very notable ones. And, furthermore, many of those I have described turn out to be very good at their job. But there is little denying the fact that the lived experience of our politicians, en masse, is not what the public might like or expect it to be.

Between the public, the media, those close to politics and elected politicians themselves, there seems to be fairly broad acceptance that there is a problem here. The heated debate over politicians’ pay and their taking of secondary employment comes and goes, but it never gets solved, and as a consequence it never dies.

So Adam’s suggestion of making them take a second job is intriguing and worth throwing into the pot of ideas. But, in the final analysis, I’d throw something different in that pot. Pay them more. A lot more. Pay them double what we pay them just now.

Like Adam’s demand to make politicians have a second job, my demand to pay them more is exceptionally unpopular. It is unpopular amongst the public. The public largely takes a something-for-nothing approach to politicians. They want them to be educated, dedicated, accessible and virtuous, but if there were a referendum on politicians’ pay, they would tick the box marked ‘Minimum Wage’ in vast numbers.

It is also unpopular amongst politicians, who have managed to burrow themselves so deep into this hole that they are now the first to argue against any salary increases that the independent pay body awards them. This masochistic tendency is actually seeing their pay fall relatively lower down the public sector pay ladder, with other public sector professions successfully arguing for pay rises, often, ironically, with the added voice of the politicians who simultaneously talk themselves down.

I have made the argument about politicians’ salaries many times before, and with a consistent lack of success. I tend to run head-first into a barrage of tweeters telling me that MSPs get paid almost three times the average salary, and MPs almost four times, and ergo they are rich and should not be paid a penny more, and in any case they’re all a bunch of useless philanderers. That is not a debate I am going to win, for those who take that view are not for changing (despite the fact that the politicians I have worked with for 20 years, from all parties, work hard, long and well).

Instead, I am trying to appeal to those in search of something better. I don’t want my politicians to be paid the average salary because I don’t want them to be average. I want them to be brilliant. I want politicians with a history in industry to come up with a model of taxation which supports those in need as well as allowing people to flourish without undue penalty. I want politicians with a history in healthcare and education to create new models for how to create a new model of state-funded provision to stand the test of time, rather than pretending the current systems are working. Writ large across public policy, I want politicians with the experience and vision to make great things happen for the people they represent.

Such people are not cheap. And that, in part at least, is why we have, from time to time, the furore we had last month about MPs taking a second job. Many of the MPs who have a second job have one because they are individuals capable of commanding a larger salary either in the public or private sector. Many of them come into politics from jobs which pay significantly more.

I am not writing this column to ask for you, the reader, to feel sympathy for these people. On the contrary. I’m asking you to consider your own interests. You need better politicians. And you won’t get them by limiting their income. Indeed, there are, I suspect, thousands of potentially ground-breaking would-be politicians who are currently out of reach because of the salary.

This is not about Geoffrey Cox. This is not about politicians who are making millions on the side. This is about politicians who need a comparatively small amount more to maintain their lifestyle, which in London in particular is unlikely to be particularly lavish.

I can well understand why politicians taking a second job leaves a sour taste in the public’s mouth. But we can sweeten it by almost entirely removing the need for our politicians to have a second job. And get more good ones in the process. Pay them more.

Andy Maciver is director of Message Matters

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