The ordinary people of Ribble Valley have things we want the council to do and we pay part of our income, in taxes, to employ staff to do them. We do not do it out of philanthropy. We do it because we want things done.

Do we offer salaries big enough to attract people? The answer to that question is clearly "yes". The council has no particular difficulty finding recruits when it advertises for staff and does not have a stream of employees leaving to get better paid jobs. By those objective tests, we are paying at least enough to get the staff we want.

Why should we pay more? The answer the strikers give is that they are suffering from inflation. Well, so are we. Those involved in the building trades are finding it very difficult to get any wages at all. Bricklayers, estate agents and solicitors are seeing their incomes plummet with the reduction in house sales. Shopkeepers, hairdressers, hoteliers and publicans are seeing big reductions in their income as people start to tighten their belts. We are facing tough times and none of us expect to do as well this year as last year.

The council employees who go on strike must believe they are different. They must believe that, unlike us, they should be insulated from the effects of inflation. What they say is that the rest of us, however much we are suffering from the economic downturn, should suffer more.

Although our incomes are going down, they want us to pay more taxes to insulate them from the downturn and enable them to do as well this year as they did last year. And, to force our hand, they are breaking their contracts with us and not turning up for work.

I think this is selfishness on an extraordinary scale. They see their friends and neighbours suffering and their cry is: "Suffer more so we need not suffer at all!" They are biting the hand that feeds them.

During the week, I went to have a look at Calderstones Cemetery in Whalley which was recently desecrated. It was heartbreaking. Mental patients, so vulnerable during their lives, being attacked even after their death.

I love destroying things. As a child, the best part of building a sandcastle was stamping on it at the end. As an adult, I once had a garage demolished and persuaded the machine driver to let me drive the bulldozer that knocked it over. I loved it. But they were my sandcastle and my garage I destroyed. The selfishness required to knock over someone else's gravestone is beyond me.