IN WHAT must be one of the funniest communications since the Library of Congress took charge of the Groucho Marx letters, Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood outlines his reasons why he – estimated salary £90,000 – should get a pay rise.

“I know I speak for the silent majority (who are not millionaires) to say this increase is well overdue,” he whines, in a letter to the consultation on MPs’ pay.

“I never expected to be watching the pennies at my age and yet this is what I now have to do.”

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the thought of this man, who has two homes (one for which he claims £2,120 a month rental allowance), who coins what ordinary people would consider generous expenses and allowances ON TOP of his salary, feeling unable to exist on an income which is not too far from FOUR times the national average.

And with his bleat about how he would be ‘earning far more’ in the Armed Forces, which he claims he left to ‘serve here’ (in parliament, I presume) I’m only surprised he isn’t moonlighting as a comedy scriptwriter.

As it is, he blathers on about what Army colonels earn - £69,000 – appearing to forget that unlike him, these men have to dodge actual flak, not the political variety. And I’m willing to bet they don’t get the 200 or so days off a year, that MPs get to spend away from Parliament.

So what’s Tobias’s point, exactly? What is the point being made by ALL those MPs who seem to think the world – but especially taxpayers earning far less than them – owe them a living?

No one asked any of them to become an MP. I’m not aware of anyone begging Tobias to abandon his own military career to represent the people of Bournemouth East.

It’s not as if MPs don’t know the salary they are going to get when they apply for the job, is it? And it’s also not as if there isn’t a queue of folk who are quite willing to do the job instead of them.

Which suggests to me that the market forces so adored by Tobias’s party are working mighty fine here, and that far from paying MPs more, they should actually receive a pay CUT on the basis we can easily find someone else to do it.

This country has just been through a long and excruciating recession caused by the bankers whose pathological greed drove us all over the financial cliff. People are STILL losing their jobs, homes and in some tragic cases, their lives – the suicide rate is up four percent.

So how DARE any of our MPs bleat about their salaries?

For most people a salary of £90,000 or even the basic £67,000 MP’s salary (now hiked to £74,000) is riches beyond their wildest imagination. If Tobias Ellwood really doesn’t know this then he has no business being an MP and should resign, immediately.

'Prison job' is far too good for Rolf 

IT’S BEING claimed that Rolf Harris has been given a ‘job’ painting murals at HM Prison Stafford.

That’s the equivalent of me being given a ‘job’ lying on a French beach, reading Jilly Cooper novels and stuffing my face with Toblerone. Or Lewis Hamilton being sentenced to ‘driving a fast car’.

The only prison job Harris should be given is scrubbing the lavvies. With his own toothbrush.

PS CAN’T understand all the criticism of the salary Child Sex Abuse inquiry Judge Lowell Goddard will receive. For the horrors she will hear about for the next five years; day in, day out, morning, noon and night, £2.4 million seems a bit on the cheap side, to me.

Concerned for the BBC or just themselves? 

CELEBS INCLUDING Gary Lineker, Stephen Fry and Clare Balding want the government to halt its BBC curtailment proposals because they reckon it will ‘diminish’ the corporation. Or are they just worried it will diminish their gargantuan BBC salaries? A bit of both, I reckon.

Real friends should tell John Bercow he's better off without Sally...

FOLK described as ‘friends’ of Speaker John Bercow reportedly claim he has decided to give his wife, Sally, ‘one last chance’ to make good their marriage after she reportedly cheated on him with his own cousin.

If Speaker Bercow had any REAL friends they’d crack open the Gevry, put their arm round him and bellow down his thick ear that ITS OVER; he and Sally are a busted flush and that he’s an utter numpty if he ever believes a word his selfish, attention-seeking, missus says about anything ever again.

Note: This piece by Faith is an opinion piece and not a news report. You can contact Faith by tweeting @HerFaithness