IF MPs are going to get a £7,600 pay rise this year then fair enough – but with just one major proviso first.

Like the badgers before them, it’s high time for a seasonal cull.

Shamelessly borrowing an idea from the old man (Merry Christmas Dad!), why do we need 650 of the blighters?

Are the interests of Warrington best served by having two Parliamentarians, designated primarily by which side of a river you happen to call home?

I’ve no qualms in doubling the salaries of our elected representatives, if you were to remove the dead wood and emerge with a nice round 300 or so.

If Prof Steven Broomhead, as de facto chief executive of Warrington PLC, is on £154,125 (or 80 per cent of that sum, to be precise) then why shouldn’t a single MP for the borough command a similar figure?

(Before you do the maths, the model just about stacks up and is still cheaper. I checked) Plainly one of the contrary arguments must be the potential disenfranchisement of voters, in super-constituencies of 200,000 plus.

But clinging on to a model which has served us since the Act of Union, when we are told everyone should be tightening their belts, the plebs as well as Parliament, makes little sense either.

And with voter interest wavering between 60 and 65 per cent over the past three General Elections, who’s to say many would notice?

Central government (especially the Tories) have been ever-so-eager to slim down our local councils for years, to turn them into glorified commissioners no doubt, with little direct responsibility for services.

Like selling off telecoms, gas, electricity, water, trains and parts of the NHS nationally.

So what’s good medicine for our town hall mandarins should be force-fed to their political masters in SW1A.

• Hopefully fortune will smile on the backers of the town’s next premium venue, in the currently-under-conversion former Warrington Technical School. Cultural quarter indeed – and a bit of income for WBC from this mothballed gem.

• SIGN OF THE TIMES: The former Railway pub, on the corner of Grammar School Road, is now a coffee house. Back in the late 80s, our teachers at Boteler needed something stronger to get them through to the final bell.

• Bus drivers have been overheard speculating that the new granite planters on Bridge Street are so huge that you could bury a councillor in one . . .

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all Guardian readers.