Ron Wood claims there is no comparison between firefighters and building workers. There certainly isn't. Working on a building site is statistically far more dangerous than firefighting.

Two building workers die through accidents on site each day throughout the year. Tragically, since 1945 more building workers have died because of accidents on building sites than British soldiers in all the various conflicts and wars in the same period.

Another difference is that when a building worker is dissatisfied with his working conditions or pay, he has the moral fibre to walk away and find himself another job, whereas firefighters bleat and moan and expect hard-working members of the private sector to subsidise their ridiculous claim for a 40 per cent pay rise.

Yet another difference is the lack of women in the building industry. It is far too hard and dangerous for their liking yet many cope with life in the fire service.

As for just stacking bricks and poles one on top of another, it takes many years to become a competent bricklayer. I would like to see Mr Wood 80ft up in the air standing on a plank of wood one foot wide and attempting to lift a 20ft steel tube six feet up on to another.

No, Mr Wood, the reason bricklayers and scaffolders earn more than firefighters is because so few of the general public either want or could do the job, whereas you could take any reasonably fit and intelligent Jill or Joe Bloggs off the street and, within a matter of months, train him or her to become a firefighter. Hence the eminently justified difference in pay.

-M W H Wilson, Goldstone Villas, Hove