<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/4267f976-63d2-46ba-ab4f-1cb30801bdc3/12D1C8C9-A7E6-4ABA-8ADD-9B40844D1BEE/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/iainmartin/5045725/When-will-there-be-cutbacks-at-Parliament-plc.html" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/iainmartin/5045725/When-will-there-be-cutbacks-at-Parliament-plc.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.telegraph.co.uk</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/iainmartin/5045725/When-will-there-be-cutbacks-at-Parliament-plc.html"><P> What is lost amid this squalid politicking is any considered debate about how many professional politicians we need and what we want from them. What is an MP worth? </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/iainmartin/5045725/When-will-there-be-cutbacks-at-Parliament-plc.html"><P> For a start, there are far too many. The Commons has 646 members; there are 129 members of the Scottish Parliament, 60 in the Welsh Assembly and 108 in Stormont. The exponential growth in the number of domestic elected representatives has coincided with their loss of power to the EU; we have more politicians, at a higher cost, with less usefully to do. At the same time, MPs’ expectations about their worth – in terms of salary, pension and living arrangements – have grown out of all proportion to the electorate’s view of the matter. Plenty of MPs with mediocre CVs would be lucky to get a job at half their salary out of public life. There are brilliant MPs in all the parties, but not many. </P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/12D1C8C9-A7E6-4ABA-8ADD-9B40844D1BEE/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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