MPs' pay rises to £74,000 — but they must explain why they're worth it
'Members of Parliament are facing public outcry after it was announced that they are in line for a pay hike of around 10 per cent to £74,000 - while the rest of the country continues to suffer austerity measures.
It comes despite the independent regulator admitting that there is “no evidence” that the current level of pay has affected the quality of candidates standing for Parliament. The taxpayer will be hit with a £4.6 million bill for the increase which will take effect after the general election in 2015.'
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Nick and Margaret: We all pay your benefits
'In an ambitious experiment, Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford want to discover how much benefit is enough to live on and if work is worth it. Four claimants and four taxpayers come face-to-face to explore each other's lives, examine their values and speak their minds. Will the tax payers feel that benefits are too high, or not enough? And will the claimants decide that hard work is good for them, or will the sacrifice be too much?
Set in Ipswich - a town with typical figures for unemployment - this first episode sees the taxpayers spend time shopping, socialising and going through the claimants' spending to see exactly how their hard-earned taxes are being spent. They must decide if they think the claimants are given enough benefits money or not enough and, with the battle lines drawn between 'scroungers' and 'strivers', this series brings the two sides together to discover if any of them can agree.'
On BBC 1 Tonight at 9pm
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Europe’s rich 'could face uprising similar to Peasants' Revolt'
'Stephen King warned that the widening wealth gap and sense of “entitlement” between older generations and cash-strapped youths had echoes of the conditions which led to the 1381 uprising of British peasants against the aristocrats who ruled them.
Then, the country had just been savaged by the plague, which robbed farmers of their workforces as well as their loved ones by killing an estimated 1.5m people. However, the wealthy ruling classes refused to modify their behaviour, leaving the poorer farm workers to bear the brunt of the economic downturn.'
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