Councillors’ big pay increase was ill-advised

No doubt with inflation currently reckoned at 9%, Maidstone’s councillors felt they were justified in thinking they should award themselves an 8% pay rise.

We call it tone-deaf.

No-one else’s wages are rising at the level of inflation, we are all falling behind and becoming increasingly worse off as a result.

It will sit ill with voters that councillors have seen fit to set themselves up nicely while everyone else suffers.

What will sit even worse with anyone in the council chamber or who watched the meeting on the council’s webcast will be the fact that the mayor,

Cllr Derek Mortimer, who was chairing the meeting, did not even ask for any debate on the subject after council leader David Burton proposed the increase.

The mayor assumed everyone would be in favour and attempted to go straight to the vote.

New elected Green councillor Stuart Jeffery struggled to get himself noticed so that he could speak on the issue.

Once he had done so, the mayor, who has seen his own special responsibility allowance rise by a staggering 23% over that received by his predecessor, still did not ask if anyone else wished to speak.

We suspect Cllr Jeffery is going to be a welcome breath of fresh air on the council. Congratulations to him and the other 11 councillors who had the decency to vote not to give themselves a pay rise.

Those in authority should take heed. Earlier this week a seemingly harmless Good Morning TV piece filmed at Buckingham Palace created uproar.

When ordinary people can’t afford to eat, these things really are hard to take.

‘When ordinary people can’t afford to eat, these things really are hard to take’