The debate and controversy about whether £14,000 or £18,000 a year is enough of a salary set me thinking about what is actually at the heart of this long-running problem.

The reality is that neither of these figures is remotely enough for a working man or woman to be expected to support a home and family, together with all the expenditure this entails. Not so long ago, these would have been considered starting pay rates.

When trying to analyse when exactly the disparity between the actual cost of living in the UK and general rates of pay began to widen, one probably has to go back quite a long way.

There is one example which springs readily to mind. I remember the public being noticeably disadvantaged when they were victim to one of the biggest confidence tricks in British history: decimalisation.

Suddenly, old pence (d) prices were cunningly turned into new pence (p) prices.

To the naked eye this was the same figure but, in fact, prices had actually doubled overnight, and so it has gone on.

To support this grubby business, both RPI and CPI factors have been manipulated by all governments to complement the sleight of hand.

Governments over the years have tried to camouflage this disenfranchisement of the working man by basically subsidising lesser-paid jobs with benefits. In my opinion, any job being subsidised with benefits is not being paid at a realistic rate.

We hear a lot of comment on the need to implement “living wage” salary levels but, in effect, while moving in the right direction, these are not actually a real living wage either.

Trevor Alford, New England Rise, Portslade