I see Gordon Brown has been attempting to 'hang with the yoof' again. The PM yesterday gave an interview to Radio 1 Xtra (whatever that is - another example of the creeping ubiquity of the Beeb) in which he said he would be willing to take a salary cut in order to mitigate the effects of the recession. He went further and noted gravely that he was 'not in this job for the money'. We all know this to be the case because he’s a dutiful son of the manse, wedded to public service. But in some odd way I wish he actually was into the wedge.

I’m not saying he should be as keen on the shekels as Tony and Cherie, but you get my drift. Brown does the job because - although it’s turned out to be the worst bed of nettles and thorns imaginable - he has stretched every sinew of his being for the last 30 years to get it, and God knows what else he’s cut out for. Managing Dunfermline Athletic, perhaps. 

The Tories, by the way, are no better on this subject: they’ve said they will cut ministerial salaries by 25% if they win power and David Cameron has, as usual, gone one further by stating he would be willing to do the PM ‘s job for 'half the money, twice the money or no money'. (That would cause someone of his family means a lot less pain than most others, of course)

It’s hard to know where to start with one’s many objections to this idiocy. Firstly, a salary of one hundred and ninety four grand for being in charge of the collective destiny of 57 million people, as well as being responsible for an annual expenditure budget of many hundreds of billions and trying to ease us all out of this current mess is not excessive. Terry Leahy wouldn’t do it for such a sum; neither would an averagely successful barrister or moderately productive surgeon with a bit of private practice on the side.

The idea that the job should go to the lowest bidder in some sort of insane reverse auction is a nonsense. There are plenty of nutjobs out there who’d do it for nothing. Being willing to offer one’s service gratis instantly devalues the offerer. Nothing will come from nothing.

Secondly, the piss-poor quality of the current batch of ministers (who’d give a job to Bob Ainsworth unless he came with a DSS subsidy attached?) shows that, if anything, they should get more money. What kind of effect does anyone think a 25% pay cut has on that job holder’s morale? About how much discretionary effort they are willing to put in, and what they believe is their own worth? What does it say about the intrinsic worth of the position? The salary should be a reflection of how extremely important these jobs are. But we’d rather expend vast amounts of energy vilifying the political class as venal trouserers of our hard-earned cash.

This moronic hair-shirtism just has to stop. The line that it’s the love of filthy lucre that has led to our undoing, so it has to be shunned, is not going to help us. It’s one thing to be mildly revolted by all those wretched investment bankers with their vampire squid funnels all clambering back on the gravy train. But being worse off isn’t fun. It’s not desirable and it’s not clever. You’ve only got to observe the wretched existences of those subjects 'on the sick' in this week’s Channel 4 documentary 'Benefit Busters' to be reminded of this. Engaging in an empty PR exercise in outdoing each other on puritanical salary reduction doesn’t get anyone anywhere. 

In today's bulletin:
G20 talks stimuli - as car sales rise again
Google's Chinese takeaway for UK businesses
Moulton quits as Alchemy boss after boardroom bust-up
Editor's blog: You get what you pay for
Bat off tricky questions, with YouTube