FEW issues in recent times have generated as much debate, and general hostility it has to be conceded, than the whopping 26 per cent pay rise for Members of Parliament.

I have to be absolutely honest at this stage and say that in my opinion, and in the great scheme of things, £43,000 per annum is not an excessive amount to pay people who, for God's sake, are RUNNING the country - or are reputed to be so doing.

And as Blackburn's Jack Straw so rightly pointed out, it is still below the amounts paid to many public sector professionals. And the private sector has a whole army of boardroom collossi who are earning much, much more. Hogs in trough is a phrase which springs to mind.

If one is looking for insanity, how about the reported £42,000 PER WEEK being paid to an Italian called Fabrizio Ravanelli, imported along with two slightly less expensive Brazilians to further the fortunes of Middlesborough Football Club.

The Teesside club is managed by a Mr Bryan Robson, former Manchester United and England captain, who must be being paid enough money to settle the gross national debt of the Third World, unless he's the kind of boss who doesn't mind his underlings being paid just a tad more than him!!!

But forgive me. I digress. We were talking about MPs and their windfall (more of a tornado actually). I would guess it's the 26 per cent increase, not the actual salaries, which have caused such howls of dissent.

You simply cannot expect people like nurses, ambulance and fire crews, police, and countless other trades and professions to accept three or four per cent rises, even if inflation is commendably low.

In real terms, the vast majority of people are worse off than they were ten years ago and the spectre of unemployment, which looms at most people's shoulders, is enough to force a hurried capitulation now individual contracts have replaced union muscle.

That's what has upset the voters. And no doubt Jack Straw, Darwen's Janet Anderson and Burnley's Peter Pike knew that when they voted for the 26 per cent.

I'm not suggesting they're not worth it. I'm just doubtful they'll manage to convince their constituents, struggling to survive in three of the most economically depressed areas in the UK. THE optimists on Hyndburn Council clearly don't live in the same world as me. Their flower-power tableau in Accrington town centre was never going to survive. I'll repeat that. Never.

The splendid floral sculptures of two life-size figures with a shopping trolley, put together with so much professionalism, care and imagination, was trashed within ten days by the pond life which blights our lives.

Vandals can't be reasoned with. You can't talk rationally to dummies with the IQ of a cheeseburger. Snipers on roofs, with night vision and high velocity bullets with orders to shoot this human trash on sight, is one answer. The perfect one from where I'm standing.

Now if our MPs, flushed with their new-found wealth, listened to their constituents on the subject of law and order, corporal and capital punishment, maybe so many of those constituents might not be so wound up over that extra £9,000.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.