Sir – You have not told us which politicians have suggested to you that the benchmark salary for a reasonable salary at the present should be that of the present Prime Minister.

I very much hope that neither of them was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Osborne. who, like Mr Cameron, has the very substantial additional perquisite of a free house in central London.

In any case our politicians are paid hugely less than those in other countries — and seriously less than they could earn elsewhere. Mr Blair when he was elected to parliament gave up about half the amount he had been earning as a barrister.

The bad habit of giving way to the bullying of journalists (whose pay is not covered by the Freedom of Information act) was initiated by Mrs Thatcher, and led to the Parliamentary Expenses scandal, and you are certainly right, that we need to pay both our civil servants and our MPs a competitive salary.

Henry Blyth, Thame

In June the Coalition Government published the names of all the Whitehall civil servants earning more than the PM’s salary — Ed