What's good for our MPs ...

Shouldn't it be the same rule for both: the recommended rise if their performance earns it, or no rise for either if the country can't afford it?

Our MP got his rise last summer. A special review decided MPs needed a 4,000 "extraordinary rise" so he now takes home 55,000-a- year basic salary, plus an 18,000 pot for "incidental expenses", with an average 4,000 per MP car allowance.

All this, plus extra staff costs and a dream pension, at a time when final salary schemes elsewhere are being shut and annuity rates are at their lowest for a generation.

Mr Quinn's rise can't be performance pay when we consider that on his watch 500 Plaxton workers lost their jobs, money to assist fishermen went largely to southern ports, and the dualled A64 project was again omitted from the government's list.

Fire risk may get less in most of the country, but in crumbling Scarborough fire cover and all our firefighters' work remains critical.

Whereas being Scarborough MP appears to be an easy ride, especially if you are silly enough to admit, as Mr Quinn does in a recent newsletter to us all, that

protocol means he can't challenge the government on Scarborough's behalf because he's now got a job as a parliamentary secretary.

We all know all that means is he's carrying a cabinet office minister's bag. So our MP will play flunky as Scarborough burns?

Sam Wiseman

Filey Road

Scarborough