IT must be close to voting time because I have seen the mechanical roadsweeper around these streets recently. I probably will not see it again until next year: if there is an election then.

Also, there has been a scurry of letters from councillors and their supporters plus the columns have also been graced by no less than Messrs Titley, Davies and Chaytor.

Councillors Boden and Byrne have also been prominent.

I seem to recollect these two were the leaders of the council when it was very weak! Then there was the 11 per cent council tax hike plus a 50 per cent allowances rise for themselves.

Of course it was not their fault. In fact, to read the literature, nothing is their fault, not even the closure of schools or elderly people's homes. One might ask if we need them and their colleagues at all?

One is pleased to see that the council tax increase was reduced from the original figure of some five per cent to three per cent. The only trouble being, how much debt is the borough likely to be in, which we, the ratepayers, will have to cough up for at a later date? Maybe they have taken a page out of Gordon Brown's book where the national debt is increasing daily. Cannot blame Mrs Thatcher now!

I recollect prior to the last General Election that Mr Chaytor proudly announced that the Government had prevented the water companies from increasing the water rates and had actually decreased them. This year the water sewerage rate has increased by some 13 per cent with a further 40 per cent at a later date. Mr Chaytor's silence is quite deafening.

As for our MEPs, well one has to ask what do they really do except draw a high salary plus expenses of one description or another, but do not appear to have any use to the public whatsoever. One reads that they pass rules or laws, some of which could be useful to the public at large but as happened recently the commissioners ignored it and made the law to the opposite effect. My comments apply to all MEPs of whatever persuasion.

Will I vote? Of course I will, even if it is only to obtain a more even balance in the local council so that one party cannot dictate to the public. There is a very fine line between democracy and dictatorship and I would rather not have the latter.

D UPSON