THE debacle over the Independent Remuneration Board's recommendations for a 10 per cent pay increase for Assembly Members sums up, for me, what is wrong in modern politics.

It is hardly surprising that many AMs from all parties were quick to say the idea will not be stomached by the general public - because they know full well that it won't.

Conservative Monmouth AM Nick Ramsay said: ”There’s no way that I’m going to go down to my local pub and argue for a ten grand pay increase. I think that would be completely outrageous and I don’t think the public would stand for it.

"At the end of the day we need a salary settlement which is fair to AMs and fair to the public and means that we can as politicians be safe to go out of our front door without getting tomatoes hurled at us."

Eluned Parrot AM, speaking on behalf of the Lib Dems, said she would reject the pay rise: “I think it's outrageous. Any public sector worker seeing that would think it was absolutely outrageous. Everybody has faced pay freezes. It’s unjustifiable to suggest that with a small increase in work load there should be a massive increase in pay.”

Labour and Plaid Cymru have also hit out at the suggestion.

First Minister Carwyn Jones said: "I recognise of course in these difficult times how people will feel about this and I can't see how we could support the proposals as they stand."

Lindsay Whittle, Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales East, said: “A week after the Welsh Government finally settled a 1 per cent pay deal with frontline NHS workers, it is obscene to suggest that politicians should be awarded a pay rise of £10,000 a year.

“Plaid Cymru will be responding to the Remuneration Board consultation urging a U-turn and we hope the board will rethink their proposals in the light of widespread concerns.”

While our household incomes are squeezed, while libraries and leisure centres are facing the axe, while the NHS is struggling to ensure it has enough funds, while this country is reeling from cut after cut, do we think our politicians in the Senedd - or in Westminster for that matter - deserve a pay rise?

No, we do not.

Yet, they are surrounded day in and day out by process-driven civil servants who live in a Cardiff Bay - and in a Westminster - bubble.

They have little direct contact with Joe or Josephine Public. They have little idea of what the public mood is on many issues.

They are simply cogs in a machine, slowly turning.

It makes us, outside that machine, cynical when we see such processes winning out over ideas and people.

That terrible feeling that, no matter who we vote for, the system will simply regenerate itself.

It is what is turning so many people off.

Think people don't care about politics? Take a look at the turnout in the Scottish referendum. People care - they need politicians to tap into the issues which ignite their passions.

People care about jobs, their incomes, the NHS, their communities, how crime is dealt with, whether their voices matter to those who are making decisions.

Politicians have to answer to the electorate.

They need to show us that a nice salary is not their motivation for being in office. It shouldn't ever be. If a politician becomes an AM or an MP without the desire to serve their electorate, if they fool their voters long enough to become elected, they will soon find suitable karmic punishment at the ballot box.

But to whom do civil servants answer when they put forward ideas which are so out of kilter with public opinion?

The remuneration board's argument that AMs will be taking on more responsibilities and therefore deserve more pay is ill-timed and ill thought-out.

Pay AMs and MPs enough money so that there is not the threat of corruptibility hanging over them, by all means.

But do not give them a 10 per cent pay rise at a time when many people have not seen a pay rise of any sort for years.

Have the common sense not to even suggest it.