IMIATAZ Patel was certainly correct to condemn the six independent councillors for their duplicity and deceit towards the voters that elected them (LET, July 17) by dropping the party that they stood for immediately after they were elected.

The malaise in politics is not limited to New Labour as he implies. Voters since 1997 will not have experienced anything different from the three major political parties with their spin, half-truths and lies if and when it is deemed politically convenient.

None of them advertise their allegiance to privatisation in election literature or anywhere else, but disguise their intentions with code words, such as modernisation, out-sourcing, Public Private Partnership.

Neither do they try to alter the massive drift of wealth from those with average or low earnings to the wealthy, but promise low taxation when they really mean low tax for the wealthy few and the majority taking an unfair share of the taxation burden.

All of them have promised the earth to pensioners in opposition but only the pre-Thatcher 1970s Labour government delivered. The lies relating to the war on Iraq are well documented.

The six Independent councillors deceived thousands of voters who thought they had voted in a Labour majority. They claim to have received an apology from the Labour Party, as well as being canvassed and chased by senior politicians including the Blackburn MP and Foreign Secretary.

In one fell swoop they have challenged the council claim of being 'Council of the Year' to the Council of Opportunists! But they are merely a symptom of the problems of modern day politics, not the cause.

DON RISHTON, Livesey Branch Road, Blackburn.