Readers' letters - August 1

Chorley MP Lindsay Hoyle tells Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to get a grip, implying that the extra salary paid to one of its hard-working consultants is over the top.

Well Mr Hoyle, I think that is rather, er, rich coming from you.

Now let us investigate what you do for your salary as Deputy Speaker (on a five-figure salary plus, generous allowances and expenses).

Well, like all MPs, you talk a lot or, as Deputy Speaker, allow others to speak or indeed not speak.

And do you save lives? Of course not.

You serve on various committees where you, er, talk some more. You no doubt offer, er ironically, consultancy work over and above your regular job.

And what do you get paid for doing that? More than this consultant, perhaps?

But even all that money for just talking, pales into insignificance when it comes to the entertainment industry where, for example, the winners of this year’s Wimbledon got £2m each, just for belting a ball across a court and over a net.

Again no lives saved here by these sportsmen and women.

Then we come to the footballers, in particular those in the Premier League, where quite a few earn more in one WEEK that an NHS consultant does in a YEAR. And for what?

Simply kicking a leather ball around on some grass. No lives saved by these footballers either.

Yet day in, day out, NHS consultants save lives and get people well again.

They invent new ways of doing surgery or investigating illnesses. Some of this surgery demands the utmost accuracy because otherwise the patient under their care may die.

They lead a team of dedicated doctors, nursing and auxiliary staff in treating patients, and then you have the gall to begrudge one of them earning £375,000 in overtime payments!

Indeed one may be seriously asking Parliament, of which you are a member, why compared, say, to the entertainment industry, are you paying NHS consultants so LITTLE?

To quote a well used word in the Chamber, “Shame!”

Indeed, just how many lives did this consultant save during that year or did this not occur to you?

Not only that, you actually seem to be having the temerity of putting a figure on each of those lives potentially saved by this consultant. I bet the loved ones of those whose lives may have been saved by this consultant, who has done this extra work over and above his contractual terms, will not thank you for that unwarranted outburst. After all, who else could have done his/her job? Not a tennis player, not a footballer and not you.

Neil Swindlehurst, Walmer Bridge

Strip Green of knighthood

Thousands of BHS workers face a miserable retirement because of Sir Philip Green’s scandalous behaviour. Is there any wonder we see sad faces on the high street? The British people deserve better.

Workers have been used and abused to make fortunes for business leaders who have had honours ‘showered upon them’ by the ‘Establishment’. It is an absolute disgrace!

Sir Philip Green should be stripped of his knighthood, but men like him will feel no shame and no remorse for their less than fortunate employees.

The honours system should also be abolished. It enshrines ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ and bolsters up a system that fits the Middle Ages rather than the 21st century.

This should be the first early test for Theresa May, who cannot afford to miss the chance to turn her rhetoric about tackling “irresponsible behaviour in big business” into reality. The big question is will she? Or is this just hot air? Responsible Capitalism! Britain stinks!

Peter Asquith-Cowen, address supplied