More and more for less and less

More and more money for less and less input - that is what MPs have achieved.

We have commented before that they have less and less to do, as increasingly legislation is invented in Brussels or by ministers at Westminster.

Last Sunday the Mail on Sunday revealed that working days in parliament are shortening. In 1980-81 under Mrs. Thatcher, sittings lasted 9 hours and 7 minutes on average and there has been a decline more or less continuously since then to 7 hours and 40 minutes in 2006-07. I calculate this to be a decline of 16%. This may largely be due to the present government which, to make its own life more tolerable, has abolished late night sittings.

We have also noticed that many members are actually in London overnight only 3 nights each week, arriving during the day on Mondays and leaving during the day on Thursdays, although both are "sitting" days, so it is the case that some are in Westminster only half the week.

As if this were not enough, the number of weeks with sitting has gone down over the years. The average since the Second World War is 209 days, but in 2007 it was only 146 days or approximately 29 weeks.

So the rank and file at Westminster are really part-timers. Is it any surprise that many decided they could earn additional money elsewhere in their free time?

(Of course many claim, and some doubtless achieve, constituency work in their free time. Much of this arguably ought to be done by people called councillors, except that they have little power as mere rubber stamps of central government these days.)

We pay them as our representatives in Westminster, to represent our views and needs in the great debates. This, as we have seen, is a lesser and lesser occupation of their time, especially as much of what they decide is nodded through as if rubber stamped.

Against all this, they have tried to pay themselves more and more. Recently it emerged that daily subsistence would be higher, and with no documentary confirmation, than the system discredited by the expenses scandal. They are still enjoying considerable subsidies on their wining and dining at the House as well, and their resettlement allowance is massive when they finish.

It is difficult not be feel angry.