Few employers would be happy to pay a full-time salary to a part-time employee. Why should the taxpayer?

I am sick and tired of hearing government spokespeople defending MPs who have highly lucrative second jobs. How many employers would be happy to pay a full-time salary to a part-time employee? Very few I should think, so why should the long-suffering taxpayer be expected to do so?

I doubt if the other lame excuse for MPs having two jobs – that of needing to be in touch with “the real world” – would cut much ice either. They should have had plenty of experience of that before they asked their constituents to propel them into the House of Commons, with all its privileges, prestige and expenses.

The fact is, to put it politely, these MPs are shamelessly taking the mick. The danger is that we all become so used to self-serving, dubious politicians that our expectations are permanently lowered. This is clearly already happening, and is very bad for the health of the body politic.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

In my 90-plus years, I have never known such a disgraceful government, with the prime minister just ignoring and in effect laughing at the elected representatives when they call for his conduct to be discussed in the House of Commons. He just stayed away when he could have spoken online, or asked for another time to be allocated. He must not be allowed to act like another Donald Trump!

The whole cabinet needs to face interrogation of their actions.

Margaret White

Address supplied

If paid external work undertaken by MPs is to be seen to be appropriate, it must pass the smell test of being work unrelated to their roles as elected representatives. This means that it must be work that is clearly obtained by virtue of their training and experience outside parliament and of a kind which they would have undertaken even if not elected. This test would no doubt rule out most of the “consultancies” that currently seem so popular.

John Wilkin

Bury St Edmunds

I am perfectly comfortable with Geoffrey Cox earning £800,000 a year following his professional career as a lawyer. I do, however, object to him also having a part-time job on the side to earn his pin money, around £82,000 a year, thus depriving someone else the opportunity to have a full-time job as a member of parliament. Someone who will attend parliament regularly for parliamentary and constituency business, not simply for access to the corridors of power whenever it suits them.

Darryl Pratt

Leamington Spa

People on universal credit have their benefits reduced as they earn money from employment. Why not apply the same principle to MPs? Any MP earning money from outside work should have their MP salary reduced in proportion to what they earn.

Mike Simpson

Preston

In your editorial (The Tories will be hoping this scandal simply goes away – it must not, 9 November) it is pointed out that a blanket ban on MPs taking second jobs would prevent MPs such as Rosena Allin-Khan working in her local hospital. I have a simple suggestion: make the maximum that can be earned from a second job equal to the current MPs’ pay with earnings above this limit resulting in an equivalent deduction from their parliamentary salary. This is a system which people on universal credit will be familiar with and is doubtless considered by parliamentarians as very fair.

Dr Christopher Lee

Chester

I’d have thought the solution to MPs taking second jobs was obvious. Ban all forms of remuneration outside of parliament. The reason for their being employed is, at least in part, as a result of their position as politicians. By all means let them have outside jobs but on a pro bono basis less reasonable expenses. MPs choose to be servants of the people. Well, let them serve! If they can’t manage on their parliamentary salary and expenses they have no business representing the vast majority of citizens who manage on much less.

David Smith

Taunton

My question isn’t whether MPs should have two jobs but how on earth do they have time? Surely 24/7 they are dealing with the needs, sometimes desperate, of their constituents? Otherwise they are listening to, making speeches on, or engaging and voting on important matters of state. How can there be time for anything else?

My grandmother worked in a mill and then as a cleaner. Despite her obvious intelligence she had no time to take up a consultancy for an international conglomerate. How easy can the job of an MP be?

Michael O’Hare

Northwood, Middlesex

Recently there have been several articles and letters published about “Tory sleaze”. For balance should it not be highlighted that many Labour MPs, including Angela Rayner, are supported financially by trade unions? I’m sure that the trade unions expect something in return. This can cause an issue between the unions’ interests and those of the MPs’ constituents.

Michael Pate

Preston

Newspaper coverage of sleaze surrounding this government is ceaseless. It’s proving too much to keep on top of it all. Is the answer to learn speed-reading?

Roger Hinds

Surrey

As a sixty-something, born and bred here, I passionately agree with the sentiments expressed in W P Moore’s letter (At the age of 76, I am ready to give up on this once proud country, 9 November).

There is much to say about the apparent current state of our democracy and each day our hearts grow heavier. This letter encapsulates the feelings in our household perfectly. We are disillusioned  and feel disenfranchised. Shame on this prime minister and his cronies. If they are the establishment role models for our grandchildren, we are fearful for their future.

My father, who was born in 1920 and died at 95, also worked for our country and was an open-minded loyal subject who fought for justice, peace and decency. We ignore this legacy at our peril and should be brave enough to say so.

Susan Taylor

Address supplied

I am 73 years old and have always been proud of my country. Now I am ashamed to say that this government is embarrassing, corrupt and self-serving. The politicians in this government are not statesmen; they are like the black marketeers in the war, just after their own interests, not caring for the people in this country.

I feel sorry for the youngsters of today because they have little chance of jobs and no one to inspire them and this government leaving Europe has made it difficult to travel and work abroad. I am lucky that I am retired and have had the privilege to live in times of great statesmen who, even if you didn’t agree with their politics, you respected, unlike this government which has no respect for their voters and change the rules when it suits them. God bless us all, because we certainly need him.

Valerie Jackson

Wirral

I have to agree with everything W P Moore has to say in his well-worded letter about being ready to give up on his country.

I would suggest however that the country he feels so strongly about is England. I am also 76 but I now feel fortunate that me and my family were relocated to Aberdeen with my job in 1984. When Nicola Sturgeon was recently accused of abusing her position, she spent a whole day answering questions, unlike our prime minister who avoids any questioning of his behaviour. I, like W P Moore, don’t understand why the electorate continue to support Boris Johnson and his third-rate cabinet.

Anyone who doesn’t understand why the SNP is so popular in Scotland only has to look at the state of English politics. I have already given up on my English heritage.

Alan Lammin

Dumfries

Who among us cannot be moved by the pictures of Richard Ratcliffe, as he endures another hunger strike in support of his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and to highlight her illegal detainment by Iran?

It shames our country massively that, over these years, a succession of foreign secretaries (Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Liz Truss) have failed to bring Nazanin home.

Can any one of us imagine what she has endured and continues to endure? Any woman? Any parent? Or what Richard and Gabriella have endured and continue to endure? It’s heartbreaking on every level. And anger inducing. I do hope this worst of all governments in the worst of all possible times is not relying on Richard Ratcliffe’s incredible dignity to let them off the hook. He is a hero (though he shouldn’t have to be). The government is shameful (though it absolutely shouldn’t be).

Beryl Wall

London W4

At one time, not so long ago, the UK was a world leader in manufacturing, albeit in a heavily polluting manner. Alas now, thanks in no small way to Margaret Thatcher’s ideology, and even up to the present Tory leader’s “f**k business” utterance, this is no longer the case. It should therefore be relatively easy for us to meet our emissions targets.

However it is perhaps not so easy for those countries like China, where we have effectively outsourced all our manufacturing, and the Asian countries which supply our clothes and textiles. Either we pay them to change to less polluting practices or we stop importing and return to a world-beating manufacturing hub.

G Forward

Stirling