Council leader Georgia Gould to get a £10,000 pay boost

• “SORRY lads, you can’t have your youth centre because I want that money to pay my mortgage with.”

If Camden councillors were totally open and honest that is what they would say in defence of the whopping pay rise they so generously plan for themselves, (‘Inflation-busting’ pay rise for cabinet is the ‘wrong thing at the wrong time’, August 22).

Serving as a councillor or in any other elected political capacity is not a job. It is a vocation, partly voluntary with a degree of financial compensation for expenses and for the time, which may otherwise have been spent on income-generating activities.

But so long as every activity we undertake is evaluated in monetary terms, we have a major societal problem. When did we stop caring about our community without wanting cash in return?

It is not ok to increase state payments for some citizens, for example, councillor remuneration, while reducing state payments for other, more vulnerable citizens, for example, benefits, on the grounds of affordability. There is only one community wallet.

And councillors should not look to the Independent Review Panel for excuses. They should instead look at themselves in the mirror and ask “will I enjoy spending my windfall while my fellow citizens are off to the food bank?”

As a Green politician I am not tribal. On this issue, however, I nonetheless find myself firmly in Camden Conservative councillor Oliver Cooper’s camp.

I am afraid that Labour’s age-old excuse that they need to pay themselves so handsomely because otherwise no poor Labour supporter would be able to be a politician, doesn’t wash. Find a better way.

What this shameful, shabby piece of politics proves is what happens when any one party has a super majority on a governing body. It is high time for reform.

KIRSTEN DE KEYSER
Green Party London Assembly Candidate, Barnet & Camden