After reading your exposé on our MPs’ earnings, I can only say that I wasn’t suprised at all.

I was simply disgusted, at the obscene amounts earned outside Westminster while they should have been there doing their job, representing the people who put them in this privileged position in the first place.

I noticed that Andrew Smith and Evan Harris both state that being an MP is a fulltime job, therefore it is fair to deduce that the others do not see it in that light.

If the ordinary person who is lucky enough to have a job told their employer that they were not available on certain days as they had commitments elsewhere, then that person would be shown the door.

With an election coming, perhaps we should bear that in mind and show the door to the likes of Tony Baldry.

Being an MP, and to serve public office, is a privilege which many are abusing.

It’s time the freeloading, expenses and alternative incomes were stopped and MPs monitored more closely.

They have abused the system and our trust, and it is time they were brought to account.

Steve Plant, Thorney Leys, Witney