I SYMPATHISE with Mike Bell, the Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate s point of view regarding Weston's MP John Penrose abstaining from voting on pay and perks.

I SYMPATHISE with Mike Bell, the Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate's point of view regarding Weston's MP John Penrose abstaining from voting on pay and perks.

However Mike only has to read the John Penrose column in the Weston Mercury to see how upset he is about the state of the MPs' expenses.

Indeed he states that the Conservative party's leader is the first senior politician to apologise to the British people. After all both he and his wife Samantha Cameron are only worth about �30million and therefore feel that perhaps they should repay the �680 that he took from the taxpayer for clearing wisteria from their chimney. He, like the rest of us, has to pay a mortgage on his second home and only charges the taxpayer up to approximately �20,000 for this.

We are all extremely lucky to have John Penrose, a thrifty Conservative MP who lives in a large Georgian rectory within spacious grounds, thereby having no need of any more chandeliers or mock Tudor beams, he doesn't even have a swimming pool

His salary is a meagre �65,000 with expenses of a further �143,684 plus thousands more allocated to his index linked pension fund. This represents excellent value for money to us his constituents. One only has to look around the town to realise what dynamic Tory policies have done for Weston and the surrounding area.

A NASH

Newlands Road

Weston