SIR – Our departing MPs, who lost seats on May 7, will find it difficult according to Gerry Sutcliffe, ex MP for Bradford South. “They have lost their job, they have lost their income,” he bleats.

Well, welcome to the real world. Unlike them, the rest of us don’t receive close to £90,000 in resettlement payments and winding up budgets, with the taxpayer meeting their staff’s redundancy costs, as reported in your pages (T&A, May25).

They have been removed by the will of the people, not as other unfortunates by a “here today, gone tomorrow” civil service mandarin, education expert, hospital administrator, police chief, fire brigade supremo or transport executive who, through their HR departments, have sacked employees on the whim of one or other transient Secretaries of State (in at this, out at the next shuffle of the Westminster pack) who has, as like as not, made policy on the hoof to provide cost savings to pander to a Chancellor’s austerity measures.

And yes, the British electorate voted for it! “Give us more”, said your Bingley and Baildon Branch of correspondents. Another five years of the same. Blame the immigrant, the unemployed, anyone on benefit, our EU partners. Slash and burn. Inspiring?

A Waterhouse, Barmby Road, Bradford