IT is difficult to understand how a man like Peter Mallinson, who has contested five local elections in Swindon, once as a Conservative and four times as a Labour candidate, can have the gall to blame all 59 members of the council for the actions of the majority, the ruling administration, the more so when he was briefly a Labour councillor himself.

Lest he has forgotten, it was the Labour Party who formed that administration with an overwhelming majority from 1978 to 2000 and, with a lesser majority, from 2000 to 2003.

Mr Mallinson goes on to inquire why there should be another council tax rise when there have been rises over the past three years.

May I remind him that the rises over the past three years, totalling 42 per cent, have all been voted through by the Labour Group with the assistance of the Lib Dems.

Last year when the Conservative proposal for a 6.3 per cent rise (one of the lowest for many years) was overturned by a Labour and Lib Dem alliance the same group of councillors then voted through a 7.3 per cent increase, but I do not recall that Mr Mallinson ever queried the need for these increases.

Mr Mallinson may think that a new stadium for Swindon Town Football Club would enhance the whole town and should be subsidised by the ratepayers.

I beg to differ. My view is that improved employment, reliable public services and a council tax pensioners can afford are rather more important.

DR C O LISTER

Whitworth Road