CHERIE Blair spent £900 on an outfit to accompany her husband Tony and impress foreign dignitaries. The Queen spent £10million on a new kitchen -- only to discover there weren't enough electric sockets and the oven doors opened the wrong way.

Local councillors and planners couldn't plan a Mad Hatter's tea party. They appear clueless to the needs of voters, the optimists who put them in office. Money is wasted on junketing of every kind.

MARJORY BAKER, Turfcote, Helmshore Road, Haslingden.