Madam,

Rather than citing any government responsibility for lengthening hospital waiting lists, Mark Garnier recently scapegoated hospital consultants as a causal factor.

Now it is the teachers’ turn to be demonised in his weekly column, where, once again he tries to carefully craft a negative response to public sector workers, from our readers.

I accept that the ‘salary’ challenge facing the government is incredibly difficult to solve in such challenging economic times but instead of reinforcing the government’s view that the requested pay increases are unaffordable and may further stoke inflation, Mark unnecessarily devalues and undermines a teaching profession that contains very many hard working and committed individuals who go well beyond what is required of them to secure the very best opportunities for those in their charge.

In his systematic attack, he indirectly criticises teachers for not stating whether they would strike or not, until the day of the strike.

Not all would have done this but all appear accused. He argues that public sector salaries are almost exclusively funded by private sector taxation, hinting perhaps that teachers should think themselves lucky that they have what they already get.

Mark is well aware that the 6 million public sector workers also pay their taxes and are very easy targets for HMRC, with few, if any opportunities to reduce their tax burdens by offsetting business ‘costs’ or paying themselves dividends instead of salaries.

In short, although the private sector are key, the cost of the public sector salaries is not simply split to the extent he leads readers to believe.

Mark then goes on to quote a £30,000 starting salary with annual pay progression, implying that this happens every year. Initially, if targets are met, it does but only in the first few years and not all teachers wish to take on extra, paid responsibility.

He then, unsurprisingly, in his attempt to cause further division, targets their 195 contracted ‘work days’ against ‘240 days for everyone else’ (everyone?) but fails to include Bank Holidays in this figure (7 of the 8 fall in school holiday periods).

Teachers, like many other workers, give substantial time to unpaid work in the evenings and weekends, as well as during holidays and their wages/salaries have fallen, in real terms, since 2008. The idea that the majority of the profession have time or an inclination to engage in paid exam marking is laughable. Mark, it is time for you and your colleagues to listen, engage in constructive debate and find a compromise.

Tim Gulliver