I, like most of your readers I'm sure, am incensed by the revelations in the Daily Telegraph about MPs' expenses.

According to the Daily Mail list of MPs' income for 2008, published on Friday, May 15 last, Wells MP David Heathcoat-Amory received in the region of £301,333, taking into account his basic salary (almost £65,000), his pension £17,357 (26.8 per cent of salary) and his expenses (£219,210). Why on earth does he think it acceptable, on top of this sort of income, to charge us, the tax payers who elected him into office, for the upkeep of his garden? It is morally wrong.

To offer to pay it back is too little, and much too late. Would his conscience, or that of all those other MPs, have made them pay it back if this disgusting practice hadn't been unearthed and made public? No, they've been doing it for years and would have continued to do so had they not been caught.

But this poses a dilemma for the electorate. Where do we go from here now that the trust we had in our elected MPs has been betrayed? Who do we now vote for? Who do we trust?

Michael Dearden

Axbridge