In the row over Kent county councillors deciding to give themselves a 15% pay hike, they are right about one thing.

The council desperately needs to have among its members people who reflect the social demographics of the county.

Go to any meeting in the council chamber and you will be struck by the sight of a sea of largely men in grey suits of a certain age.

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Oddly enough - or perhaps not - the apparent concern of councillors that this is an issue that needs serious attention has not been raised by any of them over recent years.

Until, of course, it came to the decision to give themselves a 15% pay hike. To listen to some members, you’d have got the impression that they have been agonising over how to improve the representation on the council and little else.

If this was such a pressing concern, to which the solution was to pay councillors more, there was a perfect opportunity to tackle it - and that was before the May election. How strange that no-one thought to consider raising it until after.

Every party faces difficulties encouraging people to stand in local government and no-one believes that those that do should be out of pocket.

But the argument that councillors’ pay must somehow be in line with full-time salaried staff is flawed.

Being a councillor is not a paid job: it is essentially a voluntary role. Comparing the two is like comparing apples with oranges.

And let us not forget that every candidate from every party would have known - or should have - the amount they could expect to get if they were elected.

To complain now that the allowances are insufficient begs the obvious question as to why they stood in the first place.

Of course the ultimate test will come in four years time. Will the current cohort of elected members stand aside and select as candidates more women? More disabled? Those “hard working” men and women we hear so much about from politicians?

It would be good to think so.