Adam Trimingham's article naming those who abuse their public offices should be compulsory reading for our MPs.

After ten years closely observing the Houses of Parliament, I have found it to be a selfimportant gathering of like-minded people, some clever, some cunning, but too many of whom tolerate a low level of deceit in all aspects of the operation of Parliament.

Protected by their private security force, answerable to no one for the rules and standards by which they conduct themselves, MPs and the organisations authorised by Parliament to govern us feel a level of deceit is normal.

From the top down, there is an acceptance of a slow graduation between truth and deceit. This enables policies which permit the poor to get poorer while MPs vote themselves a £25,000 pay increase, a £5 million transfer from the Exchequer to their personal pensions, and laughable "rules" on expenses. Normal people think this would be incompatible with honest dealings.

In Britain taxation is by consent of the public through Parliament, but not in practice. The average family now pays more tax than ten years ago. At the same time, taxation has been transferred from fair taxes such as income tax, to unfair stealth taxes passed on to local councils. There is nothing clever in converting pensions, house values and future income into taxable income, in order to claim our economy is booming.

We simply become an unequal society.

Why do MPs allow this?

When The Argus reported that a care worker was fined the equivalent of a day's pay for a minor parking offence, who allows this to happen?

It is manifestly unfair, and yet our MPs say and do nothing. They do not care. They prefer to be busy fools in constituency surgeries.

  • Melvyn Lee, Bevendean Avenue, Saltdean