WIRRAL Council's departed "Managing director of delivery" (nope, nor me) should really have been titled 'managing director of takeaway', seeing as he walked away last year with £570,000 in his total leaving package.

Next time you're wondering why the potholes get ever worse, deteriorating bin collections, along with the state of adult and children's social care, meals on wheels, library closures, etc etc etc, ask the glorious leaders of our Labour council, or their emissaries begging for votes in May’s local elections, why it is that they are consistently - and persistently - absolutely rubbish?

And why are they paying such ridiculous amounts to people who wouldn’t last a nanosecond - certainly not on those amounts - in the private sector?

The occupants of Brighton Street are not exactly banging on the doors of NASA, after all.

The excuse, as ever, will be that it is the "going rate" for elite employees, but it is emphatically not.

If they really are elite employees, why on earth do we only receive a below-par service in return?

No, local authority senior management pay is a racket in a firmly closed shop outside the local authority gravy train railway station.

Next stop Cheshire West.

Then Stoke.

Then Tunbridge Wells, maybe with a few six-figure consultancies along the way with some not even paying VAT...

This simply HAS to stop.

Name and address supplied.