DISTASTEFUL, disgraceful, despicable your headline said it all. No better description could be given of the behaviour of some councillors at West Wiltshire District on May 11.

The manner with which the council's business was handled that night was more reminiscent of a third rate communist state than the standards the voters of west Wiltshire expect.

Just what moral justification can be given for sacking the leader just minutes after congratulating him on 50 years service to the council, awarding him a medal and certificate of appreciation and eating his celebration cake?

However, the plot deepens! Having removed the leader, his replacement now appoints to the cabinet a member of the council whose attendance has been only 45 per cent and who has failed to chair 50 per cent of the Internal Overview committee sittings, for which he is responsible, during the last year. Furthermore, the chair of the most important committee at district (planning) is given to a councillor with an even worse record, having attended only 37 per cent of council meetings to which he was called (WWDC's own statistics).

The change of constitution which was voted in showed the naked power politics at play that night even more vividly. Currently, revisions to the constitution have to be presented for consultation to the Standards Committee. Unfortunately, no time limit is set for this so the proposers used a loophole in the arrangements to force through amendments before they could be challenged and so leave the Standards Committee comments to be heard retrospectively. So much for democracy, how distasteful!

The debate on the dismissal of the leader (who had been lauded and acclaimed minutes earlier) was marred by the actions of the chairman. Nine speakers had put their names down to speak, including Tony Phillips in his own defence. At the fifth speaker prominent members of the Liberal Democrats called for the motion to go to the vote, a call only the chairman could have resisted. Instead, with only five speakers called, the vote was taken, without the full range of debate being heard and the leader being able to speak in his own defence.

I would ask that, if this is the standard of behaviour to which the Liberal Democrats have sunk, the voters of west Wiltshire remember this at polling time in two years time.

A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT COUNCILLOR

(Name and address supplied)

I DON'T know which was more depressing in your coverage of Sarah Content's move to leader of West Wilts District Council: the misogynistic comments of Cllr Viles or those of your own reporter Craig Evry.

For Cllr Viles to suggest Sarah's colleagues had "no idea how to treat a lady" neatly reveals the real basis of his objection to a young woman taking over the leadership, while the fact that Craig Evry found it necessary to report how many children Sarah has, while not mentioning the family count of any other councillor, highlights quite how ingrained such sexist reporting of political activity can be.

H TIMBRELL

Westbury