The green shoots of recovery are at last peeping through the arid soil of austerity as one deserving group of public sector workers are promised an inflation-busting 9% pay rise just days before laying down tools for their six-week summer break.

I refer, of course, to our members of parliament who, unlike the great bulk of the public sector who are lucky if they get a 1% pay rise, are to see their salaries rocket in 2015 from a miserly £66,396 to a more acceptable £74,000.

What have they done to be rewarded so generously? They have saved lots of taxpayer money, of course. Legal aid, for example, which was developed for the enrichment of fat cat lawyers at the expense of hard-working Daily Mail readers, has had the life strangled out of it. Civil legal aid is virtually no more, while criminal legal aid is bruised and gasping for breath.

No problem, says the coalition. In the brave new world of the Big Society, consumers can find help elsewhere. Except law centres are closing down everywhere because of a lack of funds. Birmingham, Britain’s second city, doesn’t have even one law centre left any more.

All this is reflected, according to online newspaper Local Government Lawyer (LGL), in the 5% drop between 2010-11 and 2011-12 in the number of solicitors working in the legal advice service sector.

In local government during the same period, LGL reports, swingeing budget cuts have led to the axing of 3.3% of the solicitor workforce. But at least that’s better than the Crown Prosecution Service, which suffered a 7.5% cut in solicitor numbers. Trainees have fared no better. In 2007, there were 105 trainees in local government; in 2012, there were just 57.

But you can’t blame the politicians for everything – it’s the economy, stupid!

And, of course, that’s absolutely right. Our MPs are coming up with a seemingly inexhaustible stream of bright ideas to lift us out of recession. There are moves afoot to reduce benefits for unmarried teenage mothers, for instance, and if you get sacked unfairly you now have to pay to take your case to an employment tribunal, both of which enlightened measures will save the state buckets of loot.

And while they are figuring out how to spend their extra dosh, I’m sure MPs are sparing a compassionate thought for the around 2,000 university graduates who, six months after graduation, are still working in unpaid internships because they can’t find a proper job. Not to mention the tens of thousands of law graduates without a training contract.

MPs have hearts, too, you know, and they are sharing our pain. After all, the flip side of their pay hike is that they are soon going to have to pay for their own tea and biscuits.

Now that’s really being all in it together.

Jonathan Rayner is a reporter on the Gazette