Inflated Benefits

I know I keep banging on about the double standards that exist in many areas of life. 

Pensions is a good example - where the 'rules' are designed to favour those at the top.

But instead of crying unfair and campaigning for much needed change - the unions go along with this nonsense - which effectively means that the lower paid end up  subidising the better off.

Take Chris Huhne for example - he recently resigned as the government's environment secretary because of a court case - which alleges that he passed penalty speeding points on to his wife - Vicky Price - thus perverting the course of justice.

Seems like a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut if you ask me - but there you are - sometimes the criminal justice system does pull out the stops to get its man - or woman as the case maybe.

In any event Chris Huhne has walked away with a 'redundancy' payment of £17,000 - which might well be tax free - after serving only 18 months or so as a government minister.

Now this is three months of his ministerial salary of £68,827 - which he received on top of his MP's salary of £65,738.

Yet if the ordinary man or woman in the street is made redundant - they are entitled only to statutory redundancy pay - which in Mr Huhne case would be worth 1.5 weeks pay multiplied by 2 years service - or 3 weeks pay in total. 

And 3 weeks pay would be a generous figure - given that he didn't even complete two years in post.

In fact he resigned from his job for personal reasons - as opposed to having the rug pulled from under him - which begs the question:

'Why should he receive anything at all?'

Putting that aside for the moment £68,827 divided by 52 = £1,323 and a week's pay multiplied by 3 = £3970.

Yet Mr Huhne walks away with £17,000 - more than four times as much - as many of his Labour and Conservative colleagues have done before him. 

In the real world many people in the private sector would have their weekly pay capped at the statutory redundancy limit - which is only a few hundred pounds - and illustrates just how generously ministers and MPs are treated.

But of course as MPs - they drew up the very rules which they now benefit from. 

The final point to note is that these payments are not paid automatically - the ex-minister and MP must actively claim what the rules say they are entitled to claim.

And as far as I know every single one of them has done exactly that.

Even though  MPS have plenty to say about other people giving up bonuses and pay increases - when they seem to be getting something for nothing.

Which brings me back to the point - why pay them anything at all?

Especially if the person resigns voluntarily - from their post.