I’VE had a bit of an email spat with the NUT representative at one of our secondary schools.

The representative sent me an NUT standard letter threatening strike action over reforms to teacher pensions and other complaints.

My response was brief: “Thanks. As the departing Financial Secretary said in 2010: ‘There’s no money left’. Times are hard, but you have a job and many don’t. Teachers undermine their profession by embracing the mores of the ‘shop floor’ by threatening strike action. DS”.

Since then I have received a number of vitriolic emails complaining of my rudeness: I wasn’t rude; blunt, certainly; short and to the point, that too; controversial, perhaps. I absolutely do not believe however, that I was rude. I made a brief pointed argument with which one may disagree. Disagreeing with constituents is not the same as being rude to them.

What is rather worrying about the email responses my curt reply has generated is that they do not attempt to make an argument at all. Instead they go for personal abuse, which I think is to be deprecated in professionals to whom we entrust the education of our children.

Even more unnerving was the response from one teacher who told me that nobody in her entire family would ever vote for me again.

Now, I accept that I am a driven ideologue, a highly partisan party political animal, but I would never presume on the votes of my family in what is, after all, a secret ballot. I do hope that my correspondent isn’t charged with teaching citizenship.

I stand by what I have said. I have the highest respect for teachers. I was one once. I paid into the teachers’ pension scheme for the best part of ten years.

I am certain that, notwithstanding the advantage of school holidays, I have never had to work harder, or indeed, to take greater responsibility than when I was a teacher.

Teaching is among the noblest of professions because all ambition is vicarious: one’s success as a teacher can only be measured by the success of your pupils.

One’s whole purpose is to do well for others.

By the same token, however, nothing can undermine the profession more dramatically than strike action, for it strikes at the very heart of the concept that the teacher exists for the advancement of the pupil.

I have no doubt that the diminution of teaching as a profession in the estimation of the public over recent decades is a consequence of the readiness with which a minority of teachers have taken to strike action or the threat of it.

I believe that you sacrifice your claim to be a professional if you down tools and walk out in the manner of an unskilled labourer without responsibility.

As to the specific grievance about pension reform, I have some sympathy: the reformed pension requires higher contributions for less generous benefits than its predecessor.

Teachers, however, cannot be insulated from economic reality. Like everyone else, teachers are living longer in retirement (in fact they are second only to Church of England clergy in their longevity).

Their scheme is “pay as you go”, ie working teachers pay for the pensions of those in retirement, as in turn, their own will be paid for by those still teaching when they themselves retire. In the past there were four working teachers to every retired one, but now the ratio is only one to one.

If the scheme is to remain viable, there has to be a judicious mixture of paying more, working for longer, for a more modest pension. It is either that or the taxpayer stumps up more – and, as I implied in the email, this is not an option because the money has run out.

I know it’s tough on teachers but their accrued benefits are preserved (they will get the benefits they have already paid for with their contributions record), they do have relatively well-paid and secure jobs (it is very hard to sack a teacher) and, notwithstanding the pension reform, it remains a much better deal than most people dream of.

Finally, it is true, my emails are short and sometimes sharp. I respond to some 80 emails from constituents per day, often late at night, so I have to be brief. If, however, you want a longer more considered reply, then send me a letter. I will then dictate a response through the moderating influence of my secretary.