They get well paid when you add on all the perks they receive, they influence our lives and our futures.

Ask yourself the question, what has your MP achieved to improve your lives?

Then ask why do you (if you are one that bothers) vote them into power?

Did your MP vote to invade Iraq? Was it because they felt it was the right decision or due to being told to toe-in-the-party line?

Did your MP support the closure of local hospitals only to add to air pollution so that we have to attend a huge complex full of superbugs many miles away?

Did they reduce the opening hours of police stations and indeed done away with the local police house?

Did they support 24 hour opening, seven days a week?

Did they want you to pay for the Olympics to be staged in London when the country is on the brink of bankruptcy? That is, our borrowing is massive. And will that debt ever be paid off by you, the taxpayer?

The list is endless and it will stay that way unless you do something about it.

I am not saying all MPs behave in the same way and it is the free thinkers who usually make more sense and more in touch with you and me at grass-roots level.

We might not see a General Election until 2010. Can you wait that long?

Just like religion, some of these people/preachers cause more harm than good dictating to us how we must live our lives while they do as they please which includes going into war and killing innocent good people.

Do you really feel that pound sterling can cope with the competition from an expanding and strengthening euro?

This country is the corner shop struggling to stay open while the EU is the massive supermarket.

We have always been Europeans, so why fight it? They are our own flesh and blood as indeed is any other human-being. We are all conceived in the same way, we basically look the same. It is only politicians and religions that encourage conflicts.

Come on people, grow up and stand up for what you really believe in. A world of calm and respect.

You don't have to go to church or pray to be a good person. Just be one. Don't follow or support those who are poor leaders but be strong and think for yourself.

RICHARD F GRANT, Burley.