"Hee's only mayor to the extent that he calls himself mayor to his friends in the penitentiary." So it was announced at the end of August by Mayor Philip Giordano's deputy in Waterbury, Connecticut, US. It was decided that, while Mayor Giordano languishes in jail, he can keep his benefits and half of his $83,500 pay.

This raises several questions. Despite Simon Fanshawe's assertion that these claims are a fabrication (Letters, September 12), this is

yet another case of a directly-elected US mayor who has ended up in the slammer. Giordano's full pay is about £55,000. Westbury is no more important than Brighton and Hove and yet, over here, to judge by the salary given the chief executive, a mayor would get some £100,000 - and this in a country where wages are lower than in the US.

Small wonder some people are trying to persuade us we need them and their retinue as a directly-elected mayor.

-James Short, St Aubyns, Hove