The Week 20 September 2024
Director
This has not been the week that Starmer would have hoped for to lead into his first party conference as PM. Freebie- and Gray-gates are filling the airwaves. And his complimentary Arsenal box, Taylor Swift tickets, and designer gear, along with Sue Gray’s £170k salary, are predictably being juxtaposed against poor pensioners shivering in their homes as winter arrives.
All of this is awkward given Labour’s previous attacks on the then Conservative government’s SpAd pay and donor gifts — they’ve made it easy for hacks to make hay — but there is a very serious point lost in the furore: Gray is not overpaid, and the PM is certainly underpaid.
As a country, we seem to have decided that politicians in general and those who advise them are not worthy of fair pay. It has become popular to see them not as public servants, but as untalented and ‘in it for themselves’. But while there have certainly been notable cases of grifting MPs (many of whom have rightly had to step down), that is not the norm. Generally MPs work very long hours and are deeply committed to supporting their constituents.
In response to the Gray salary saga, I posted this. Check out some of the responses for a flavour of that disparagement (mostly variations on ”Talent?? What talent?”).
My point is two-fold (1) the position of the PM could not be more important to the health of the country, and their right-hand adviser is key to ensuring they can deliver, and (2) to state what should be blindingly obvious, pay does matter in attracting talent. (I am not saying other factors are not also key in attracting people to public service.)
For context, there are more than 50 civil servants on more than £200k, almost 200 council employees earn more than the PM, the Mayor of London and First Minister of Scotland get paid the same as the PM, and chief execs of many of the big charities (e.g. Barnardo’s and the British Heart Foundation) get paid significantly more. The PM is underpaid (and no, living in Downing Street and getting a car and driver do not compensate for that).
The argument is the same for civil servants. If you want brilliant government, you need to attract and retain brilliant people. As Re:State has consistently argued, pay them properly.
And the cold pensioners? This is not a zero-sum game, we can want to make sure poor pensioners can afford to heat their homes and want to pay public servants appropriately. And, whisper it, we can also acknowledge that wealthy pensioners don’t need that taxpayer subsidy.
Onto our read of the week…
Having defended politicians, I feel it only fair to also point out that, at times, they are creating their own rods. I’m afraid there are no easy solutions to the big challenges facing the country, only trade offs, and we need politicians to be more honest about that.
The read of the week, by former political adviser Giles Wilkes, is all about the trade offs the Government will have to make in deciding how to execute their growth mission. Investment vs consumption, trade vs security, and, most terrifyingly for ministers, popular policies (largely hand outs, think tax breaks for small businesses that are not in fact productive, or benefits to pensioners who can afford their own energy bills) vs spending (or cutting) for growth.
“I am suspicious of any attempt to set out a growth ambition without being clear about the political trade-off being confronted”, concludes Wilkes. Hear hear!