While I sympathise I am also somewhat mystified. I do not work in the “public sector” and, like many in the working world, am employed in what is loosely called the “private sector”. And we do not have the benefit of that public sector shelter. We do not get help with pension contributions, or annual salary rises by right, we do not have regular hours or fixed retirement etc. If we want more money, we have to demonstrate increased productivity, work more hours, increase qualifications and so on.

A straw poll among my contemporaries and family members shows none have had pay rises over the last four years, some have had pay cuts, none seem to have made pension provision or been able to save and one is on a “zero hour contract” which is even more difficult to manage. Others, like myself, are still working at over 65 (the assumed retirement age).

So tell me what is a sustainable wage? Is what it costs to live in London and the home-counties which is very expensive, as fair as in say North Wales, which is not so expensive? Should I support the public sector employee demands when I or my colleagues can’t even consider the benefits they are offered and all I see is yet more cuts in services provided by the local authority, the health service and yet more cuts and withdrawal of services at Wycombe Hospital not to mention the loss of the A&E department and so on, and I have not even touched on the reductions in the mental health service provision, social services etc.

That is what we in the private sector see, less or poorer service provision, yet we are told it costs more! I understand the two might not be connected but that is my perception. Yet the higher up in all the public sector seem to be paid lottery number salaries for what? What about a bit of levelling down in wages and some cutting in upper management to fund a better “hands on” service? My explanation might be simplistic but it is us, always us the working private sector who seem to pay, either though the council tax, the business rate or through income tax and NI payments. — Anthony Mealing, Consultant Conservation Architect, High Wycombe