You’ve got to admire those deputies

Sir,
The only thing I am surprised about with the recent pay rise that MPs have given themselves is that the press should be so universally indignant. The truth is, you’ve got to admire these guys for a whole host of reasons:

(1) Their sheer gall.
(2) Their timing. They know that by the time Parliament resumes after the summer break, other issues will be headline news.
(3) The fact that they stitched up the civil service unions with a two-year ‘austerity plan’ before putting their own hands in the cookie jar.

If this isn’t a case of ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ then I don’t know what is. The fact that some of them should try to justify their pay rise on the grounds that they’ve been underpaid for years, just shows how out of touch they are with their electorate. The vast majority of Cypriots of my acquaintance feel underpaid, and most work a lot harder than their MPs. The only difference is that unlike MPs they don’t have the privilege of being able to vote for their own pay rise. In the words of Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

J.Mills, Nicosia

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.