Can't have it both ways!

So it's happened - I posted about it back in July, and now it has come to pass.  The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (note the word Independent) has awarded MPs an 11% pay rise. And this at a time when most workers are suffering and have suffered a pay freeze over several years. This has really put MPs and Ministers on the spot - unless they abolish the IPSA, they cannot stop the pay-rise happening, nor can they refuse it - if they don't want it, all they can do is give it away.  But why create an independent body to set your pay if you are then going to effectively ignore what they come up with?  Sort of defeats the object surely? Perhaps IPSA have done nobody any favours by saying that the rise will not come into effect until after the next election - effectively ensuring that it will become an election issue, with candidates rivalling one another to use it to their advantage. When MPs used to set their own pay, they were seen as feathering their own nests, and now that they have handed the job over to an independent body they are faced with what is bound to be an unpopular result.  What a mess!