You can't be bloody serious! MP's are not poorly paid. In the UK, they get £75,000 a year which is topped up by a seemingly endless pot of expenses! Not just that but many MP's are millionaires and often were born into that wealth. Many are landlords or own businesses. Due to this priveleged status they are not accountable to us and don't care about our everyday problems. I mean they give themselves a 11% pay rise while most wages are falling. I get it's a hard job to an extent but what hard jobs pay their workers this well? All the well paid jobs aren't so hard. You don't see the police getting paid so well but at times they put themselves in real danger. 

I respect any party that promises to limit the pay they get. You have to be passionate to be a politicians, pay shouldn't be a factor. You have to convince your boss, the public to even get it. So pay shouldn't matter so much because of that. If we have to live within our means, so should they. 

10% Specific policies

40% their ideals

50% their ability to consider more than one side of an argument.

Single-issue reasoning is a bad idea. Don't vote for a politician because you agree with them on just one specific issue (no matter how dear to your heart that issue may be). Try not to vote for them just because they share your ideals - an intelligent and honest person who disagrees with you is infinitely better than an unintelligent and corrupt person who says what you want to hear.

Of course, the real challenge is determining how they rank on that 50% factor. You have to listen to their words, compare with their actions, and then look at whether they've changed positions on issues in a way that doesn't necessarily benefit them. Obama supporting gay marriage doesn't satisfy, as polls indicate that a lot of people support gay marriage (the change might be political). Rand Paul changing positions on issues most certainly doesn't satisfy, because he switches back and forth all the time. Also, a nuanced view is also a good part of it (notice the republicans always declaring that they'll repeal "Obamacare" rather than considering the merits of each component separately? That's a lack of nuance).

even if they get 100k, its not that much, compare that to the banksters that get payed much higher, dont do a usefull job at all and dont have a chance of getting fired every 4 years. and the head of the police is payed as good or better than politicians.

i dont understand why most people care about that paycheck at all, its a tiny tiny fraction of all government paychecks and they dont get more than other highranking goverment worker.

As far as i'm concerned they should have a basic paycheck like the rest of us. They are supposed to be accountable to us but most of them are rich to begin with, many being landowners, business owners or stock brokers and yet they get bonuses in the form of 'MP's expenses'. The rest of us have to do extremely well to get some sort of bonus, what makes them so special? They have to be accountable to us and pay is good way of achieving that. At the moment, the pay is partly why they are so out of touch. 

And finally, we should care about their paycheck. We are all told to restrict spending right now. So they should practice what they preach. That's my main point. But really I think the idea of political representatives is awful, it should be up to us ordinary people what direction our area goes in.