1. Your link is broken; it is ftp not http for some reason
2. Business expenses are just that, not income
3. 25k salary for a secretary is not unreasonable
4. Renting, or buying, somewhere near parliament is going to cost a fortune
Until he became a minister, Simmonds, for example, earned a useful £50,000 a year as a strategic adviser to a private health company. He also had other outside earnings. For him, going into government no doubt involved a substantial cut in income.
While I agree it seems... extreme... for a family to struggle on 110k GBP, it's not a high salary for a household considering tax, considering what the job entails, and as the article states, considering where this guy is the MP for, and considering it would be a significant pay cut...
It's his choice, no?
The expenses scandal and the backlash probably has gone too far in the other direction, now. Everyone should be open, post all their expenses, slum it where required (ie, Premier Inn, not Hilton), but on the other hand.. do I really begrudge an MP a seat in first class on the train? No, actually, I don't.
The problem is perception vs reality vs the ideal. Perception: All MPs are self serving scum. Reality: They were idealists once and have been ground down by the media, their own parties, and the system. Ideal: Supporting their constituents, fair, just, honest.
Hard job, very hard considering the continual shit they take in the media (some deserved, some not), but we're now in a place where you can't get a true answer from anyone because they know if they deviate from the script ("we've said we're working towards...) they'll get pinned by a merciless media and hounded out of a job they may well care very much about.
