MEPs Vote Themselves Lower Taxes Then Deny It

Disgraced EX-MPs eligible for Parliament’s Perks - Indy
We Want the Heff - Boris Johnson
Gordon Brown: McBride Now Not Even Mr McBride - Iain Martin
Lawmakers Bill Taxpayers For TVs, Cameras, Lexus - WSJ
Dennis Skinner Claims Only £27 per Day - Observer

TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 2009

MEPs Vote Themselves Lower Taxes Then Deny It

A TaxPayers’ Alliance/ComRes poll (report) asked 101 MEPs and 1020 members of the British public their opinions.  One of the statements respondents were asked to agree or disagree with was

MEPs should pay a lower rate of income tax than the people they represent;

The public were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea that MEPs should enjoy lower taxes than their constituents, by 82% to 15%.  10% of MEPs were openly in favour of the proposition of lower taxes for themselves, whilst 75% were publicly opposed.  Not so bad you think, they on the whole accept that all should be equal before the law.

Except MEPs have already voted for themselves a special tax rate. They say one thing to the public but vote in the opposite direction in the EU Parliament itself.

UPDATE : The BBC also polled the British public, finding that most people think most MPs are corrupt and when asked whether they trusted MPs to tell the truth, 20% said they did and 76% said they did not.  Which shows the truth that of the saying “you can fool some 20% of the people all the time”….

62% said they believed MPs put their own self-interest ahead of the country and their constituents. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time…