@balmer_tim
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Author of military heist thrillers. I like politics, business, history, defence, one tier justice and society. 🪖 Fusilier, ⚽ Arsenal.
Warwickshire
Joined December 2020
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For most of history most people were dirt poor or owned. That is the default human condition. In every continent across Empires, tribes, caliphates, kingdoms - slavery and hunger were normal. Britain did not invent either. It did two unusual things: it made a political decision to outlaw the slave trade and then slavery in its empire, and it built the industrial system that eventually made mass absolute poverty optional.
Tim CB retweeted
Brilliant take.
MP pay is too high and too low at the same time.
From April 2026 the basic salary is £98,599. Against a UK full-time median of around £39,000, that is a fortune. For someone who would otherwise be a local councillor, a party staffer, a mid-ranking official or a professional who never quite made it, it is the best job they will ever have. Safe, status-rich, and paid like a senior manager.
For a high achiever it is a pay cut. A decent private-sector director, a good lawyer, a consultant, a founder, a specialist doctor or a senior operator can earn more than that without the public abuse, the two homes, the lost weekends or the certainty that one bad clip ends the career.
IPSA itself benchmarks the job against police superintendents, NHS consultants and army colonels and still wants to inch toward £110,000 because even that is not competitive with what capable people can make outside.
So you get adverse selection. The salary is lavish if you are ordinary and modest if you are exceptional. The people for whom it is a step up apply. The people for whom it is a step down often do not. Then we act surprised that the Commons is full of dross.
You cannot simultaneously pay like a public-sector sinecure and expect private-sector talent. That is the whole problem.
Too high for the morons who fill post. Too high for a role that involves helping people to fill in benefits forms.
Too low to attract high quality people interested in creating a strong vibrant world leading country.
MP pay is too high and too low at the same time.
From April 2026 the basic salary is £98,599. Against a UK full-time median of around £39,000, that is a fortune. For someone who would otherwise be a local councillor, a party staffer, a mid-ranking official or a professional who never quite made it, it is the best job they will ever have. Safe, status-rich, and paid like a senior manager.
For a high achiever it is a pay cut. A decent private-sector director, a good lawyer, a consultant, a founder, a specialist doctor or a senior operator can earn more than that without the public abuse, the two homes, the lost weekends or the certainty that one bad clip ends the career.
IPSA itself benchmarks the job against police superintendents, NHS consultants and army colonels and still wants to inch toward £110,000 because even that is not competitive with what capable people can make outside.
So you get adverse selection. The salary is lavish if you are ordinary and modest if you are exceptional. The people for whom it is a step up apply. The people for whom it is a step down often do not. Then we act surprised that the Commons is full of dross.
You cannot simultaneously pay like a public-sector sinecure and expect private-sector talent. That is the whole problem.
Stand Up to Racism attacking democracy with threats of violence. Anyone in @AntiRacismDay is a horrible person and blight on society.
🚨BREAKING: far right Restore Britain including fascist Patrick McGinnis have been chased out of Camden by Stand Up to Racism locals as they tried to leaflet for the Holborn & St Pancras by election
#standuptoracism
The power of Twitter - I've just chatted to an old army friend for the first time in about 15 years. He found me through my posts, my meandering thoughts on how to fix the world have achieved something.
Tim CB retweeted
You’ve nailed it here, Tim
This is exactly the problem. That’s why we end up with such a bunch of second-class duffers.
The only way to get talent is do what Singapore does and pay proper wages for high-performance talent.
The only problem is the really mediocre grasping types become desperate to secure these roles🤷🏼♂️🤦
Tim CB retweeted
There is a huge problem with selection: pay doesn’t solve it. Controlled by central party cliques the criteria are loyalty to the dear leader, enforced by biddable skeletons in the cupboard for the whips to use.
Starmer got to the top of both law and politics but he was woeful at both. They were just games for him to win rather than a way to deliver positive change.
My daughter's birthday party is at a farm play park and this is the cake I found. It looks like I've done a good job sourcing it but I was just lucky that it is something our regular supermarket does.
Tim CB retweeted
I think this is a compelling point.
We want highly competent, even exceptional people to make our laws.
But that requires exactly that sort of person to take a massive pay cut, often abandoning their entire careers completely.
So you end up with a lot of mediocre people.
MP pay is too high and too low at the same time.
From April 2026 the basic salary is £98,599. Against a UK full-time median of around £39,000, that is a fortune. For someone who would otherwise be a local councillor, a party staffer, a mid-ranking official or a professional who never quite made it, it is the best job they will ever have. Safe, status-rich, and paid like a senior manager.
For a high achiever it is a pay cut. A decent private-sector director, a good lawyer, a consultant, a founder, a specialist doctor or a senior operator can earn more than that without the public abuse, the two homes, the lost weekends or the certainty that one bad clip ends the career.
IPSA itself benchmarks the job against police superintendents, NHS consultants and army colonels and still wants to inch toward £110,000 because even that is not competitive with what capable people can make outside.
So you get adverse selection. The salary is lavish if you are ordinary and modest if you are exceptional. The people for whom it is a step up apply. The people for whom it is a step down often do not. Then we act surprised that the Commons is full of dross.
You cannot simultaneously pay like a public-sector sinecure and expect private-sector talent. That is the whole problem.
I think the only MPs we have that see being in parliament as a vocation are those that have achieved before parliament. Putting aside whether you are for against @RupertLowe10 politics. It is clear he is not there for the money, he wants to improve Britain. Many of them actively dislike Britain.
I have two dads (neither is a step dad) and both have remembered my daughter's birthday which makes me happy. Both have forgotten mine in the past so I appreciate they remember my children's.
Tim CB retweeted
MPs’ salaries are too high and too low. An interesting argument 👇
MP pay is too high and too low at the same time.
From April 2026 the basic salary is £98,599. Against a UK full-time median of around £39,000, that is a fortune. For someone who would otherwise be a local councillor, a party staffer, a mid-ranking official or a professional who never quite made it, it is the best job they will ever have. Safe, status-rich, and paid like a senior manager.
For a high achiever it is a pay cut. A decent private-sector director, a good lawyer, a consultant, a founder, a specialist doctor or a senior operator can earn more than that without the public abuse, the two homes, the lost weekends or the certainty that one bad clip ends the career.
IPSA itself benchmarks the job against police superintendents, NHS consultants and army colonels and still wants to inch toward £110,000 because even that is not competitive with what capable people can make outside.
So you get adverse selection. The salary is lavish if you are ordinary and modest if you are exceptional. The people for whom it is a step up apply. The people for whom it is a step down often do not. Then we act surprised that the Commons is full of dross.
You cannot simultaneously pay like a public-sector sinecure and expect private-sector talent. That is the whole problem.
Tim CB retweeted
"You cannot simultaneously pay like a public-sector sinecure and expect private-sector talent. That is the whole problem."
MP pay is too high and too low at the same time.
From April 2026 the basic salary is £98,599. Against a UK full-time median of around £39,000, that is a fortune. For someone who would otherwise be a local councillor, a party staffer, a mid-ranking official or a professional who never quite made it, it is the best job they will ever have. Safe, status-rich, and paid like a senior manager.
For a high achiever it is a pay cut. A decent private-sector director, a good lawyer, a consultant, a founder, a specialist doctor or a senior operator can earn more than that without the public abuse, the two homes, the lost weekends or the certainty that one bad clip ends the career.
IPSA itself benchmarks the job against police superintendents, NHS consultants and army colonels and still wants to inch toward £110,000 because even that is not competitive with what capable people can make outside.
So you get adverse selection. The salary is lavish if you are ordinary and modest if you are exceptional. The people for whom it is a step up apply. The people for whom it is a step down often do not. Then we act surprised that the Commons is full of dross.
You cannot simultaneously pay like a public-sector sinecure and expect private-sector talent. That is the whole problem.
MP pay is too high and too low at the same time.
From April 2026 the basic salary is £98,599. Against a UK full-time median of around £39,000, that is a fortune. For someone who would otherwise be a local councillor, a party staffer, a mid-ranking official or a professional who never quite made it, it is the best job they will ever have. Safe, status-rich, and paid like a senior manager.
For a high achiever it is a pay cut. A decent private-sector director, a good lawyer, a consultant, a founder, a specialist doctor or a senior operator can earn more than that without the public abuse, the two homes, the lost weekends or the certainty that one bad clip ends the career.
IPSA itself benchmarks the job against police superintendents, NHS consultants and army colonels and still wants to inch toward £110,000 because even that is not competitive with what capable people can make outside.
So you get adverse selection. The salary is lavish if you are ordinary and modest if you are exceptional. The people for whom it is a step up apply. The people for whom it is a step down often do not. Then we act surprised that the Commons is full of dross.
You cannot simultaneously pay like a public-sector sinecure and expect private-sector talent. That is the whole problem.
MP pay should be related to performance. Tie the next rise to GDP per person. If output per head is flat, so is the package. If it grows, they share it. That is the only incentive that matches the job. Attendance and committee nights are not a result.
