MAYBE it’s because it’s the season of goodwill.

Or maybe he’s simply insane. These are the only reasons I can think would prompt the man in charge of IPSA, the committee which reckons MPs should have an 11 per cent pay hike, to claim there is ‘significant support’ for his package.

There is in the greedy Westminster community. In the real world where, if they are lucky to have a full-time job at all, most people have not had a pay rise for three or more years, there is blind fury at the idea that MPs should trouser this stonking pay hike on top of their lavish salary and expenses.

MPs already earn three times the national average wage. And they are still in receipt of generous allowances to cover anything from their second home to their travel. They get subsidised gourmet food at the Houses of Parliament. Many get freebies and invites to everything from the FA Cup to the Royal Opera House. And that’s on top of the 20 weeks a year they DON’T have to be in Westminster.

Nice work and as plenty still want to get it, why do they need to be incentivised further?

It’s not like there aren’t people queuing up to be MPs, is it? And it’s not as if they don’t know the money on offer.

But all this common sense seems to have completely by-passed the IPSA boss, Sir Ian Kennedy. Not Sir Ian Dinnerlady, Sir Ian RefuseCollector, or Sir Ian Part-time-Shelf-Stacker-at-Sainsbury’s, you notice.

That’s the problem – if normal people sat on this committee they would know that 11 per cent is ludicrous and one per cent is all the MPs should get.

They would also let Sir Ian know that his assertion that unless we give them this money, we may risk another MPs expenses ‘disaster’, is enough to make most folk go navy blue with rage.

Is he really saying the only way to stop MPs troughing is to stuff their mouths with gold?

If it is he should go today and give his job to someone whose response to this borderline criminality isn’t to throw up their hands and say ‘what can you do’, but, rather, to tell them they’ll have their collars felt.

And yes, I WOULD do the job for free!