I SOMETIMES despair of the inability of people to do simple arithmetic.

The letter from John Phelan (HAS, Apr 26) on council pay claims that saving £810,000 per year on top pay could provide 81,000 jobs at £10,000 per annum.

Get out the calculator please – the real number is 81. The wages of 81,000 such jobs would be £810m.

So while the underlying point about the excessive payments of some council staff has merit, do not undermine it by quoting daft figures.

County Councillor Nigel Martin, Pity Me.

AFTER reading the article on the salaries of local authority chief executives and seeing the predictable response from Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, I decided to find out whatthe Taxpayers Alliance (TPA) actually is.

it is not the grassroots alliance of ordinary tax payers that it claims to be, and is in fact a right wing, stand-alone arm of the Conservative Party.

With a budget of over £2m a year, it employs ten full-time staff and is financed from wealthy Tory party donors such as Tony Gallagher, Chris Kelly, Malcolm McAlpine and Sir Anthony Bamford of JCB fame, who alone has given the Tories more than £1m.

This week The Daily Telegraph reported that the TPA’s Chief Executive Matthew Elliot, the well-known former Tory party employee, has been offered the job of David Cameron’s chief spin doctor, Lord knows the Prime Minister needs one.

If the TPA is so keen to protect the interests of the British taxpayer, why does it never direct itsenergies towards the estimated £120bn of tax avoidance and evasion in the UK? Oh, I get it, it mustn’t upset its paymasters.

Charlie Kay, Bishop Auckland.

JOHN PHELAN’S sensible letter (HAS, Apr 26) summarising what could be done with a five per cent saving in council staff wages (actually only about 32 jobs at the average wage would be created) unfortunately overlooks the point that we all sell our labour at the highest value to ensure the well-being of our families. I have never agreed a pay cut in a work contract, but have negotiated better deals for myself.

It is a very rare person who would make this sacrifice. This is why we laud those who give their time and money to charitable causes.

This instinct to praise such people could probably be a consequence of feeling guilty at not responding to others’ needs in a similar fashion.

This failure of the human race to share all of the resources that exist on a planet we all spin around on may be the driving force behind inventions and socalled progress, but it is also likely to be the reason for our eventual extinction.

Barbara Jackson, Sacriston.