COUNCILLOR D Rishton (Letters, November 22) castigated previous Tory policy for local government - rate capping, compulsory competitive tendering and finance for housing.

Without rate capping, Blackburn's council tax would have gone through the roof, even though it is still one of the highest in the land.

Labour will replace "crude and universal capping" with "crude and arbitrary capping," coupled with the replacement of compulsory competitive tendering with a "duty of best value."

Best value is a smokescreen, behind which the discipline of compulsory competitive tendering is to be removed to appeal to Labour's cronies in the public sector trade unions.

The Government is pursuing Labour's priorities, not the people's, despite claims of being the "people's party;" it's a mechanism for accommodating variable priorities.

Regarding housing, it was surprising that Coun Rishton should talk about Conservatives' under-funding of council-owned housing, since his government underfunded Blackburn's housing programme this year by £3.5 million and for every year Labour opposed their government's scheme for a local housing company, they missed £5 million of extra investments.

I was also criticised for highlighting corruption in Labour-controlled local government, but the record speaks for itself; Doncaster, Rotherham, Glasgow, inter alia - but it was implied that this was excusable because of the allegation that the former leader of Tory-controlled Westminster Council had left a £20 million surcharge bill unpaid. The reality was that the court of appeal, on April 30, cleared the former leader and her former deputy, after the longest ever audit investigation in English local government history. The court also quashed the Westminster auditor's surcharge of £27 million. Of the 16 people originally accused by the auditor, not one was found guilty by the courts.

Coun Rishton is respected for his forthright political views but I think he may accept that New Labour's Local Government (Organisation and Standards) Bill was the central issue of my remarks (Letters, November 11).

COUNCILLOR J HIRST (Beardwood with Lammack Ward), Blackburn Conservative Association, Preston New Road, Blackburn

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