Surrey county councillors have voted themselves above panel recommended increases including to £55,000 for leader David Hodge. The Panel has quit, readers’ letters have flooded in (see What the press says) and Surrey Advertiser editorial comment is headlined Is this what you voted for at elections ?

We see  the majority Party plundering  savings with  contempt, taking the money from  the increase in council tax and adding to our  national public debt. A majority of councillors (47 out of 81) have the Special Responsibility Allowance. Are they our champions or are they  surrogate managers on the cheap ? They cannot be both. They come untrained from the Party stable, outnumber residents associations, and  lord it over  officers justifying high pay for managing big budgets.   With politics having such a bad name  recruiting candidates must be difficult but we  shouldn’t be asked to elect barrel-scraped people only wanting  to be a ”member” with financial support. We are  perpetuating an unaccountable ruling ‘club’.”

Do news reports about the Co-Op apply in Surrey ?: “a damning critique of the Co-op’s governance”, “the group would go bust unless major reforms were introduced, including replacing its current board of lay members with a smaller group of professionals” and “lack of boardroom expertise had been a major factor in  disastrous decisions” with “our members understanding that the issue is one of competence