IF Cllr Ian Barker really believes that his obfuscation and mud-slinging, through the medium of the Citizen letters' pages can have the result that he so obviously desires then the only conclusion can be that he regards the citizens of the city as a bunch of morons.

Utterly regardless of the conduct of Cllr Heath and the MBI group on the council the fact is that £2million of our money has been lost on the Blobby venture. Councillors claim they were unaware of important, some would say crucial, developments during the negotiations.

It is obvious that senior officers withheld, either deliberately or inadvertently, information from councillors which may have influenced their decisions on important financial matters. Whether this would have caused councillors to change their minds is not the point. They were denied the opportunity to do so. If the withholding of important information from elected representatives by officers was deliberate then it was wrong and they should have been disciplined. If it was inadvertent then, clearly from the resulting mess, it was a very serious misjudgement. So who does the council ask to "investigate" the matter and "report" on it? Answer - one of the senior officers who, by his own admission, was in possession of the important information and failed to tell elected representatives about it?

Ah, but we are told, there will be another investigation, this time by the District Auditor. Precisely what, by statute is he permitted to investigate and precisely what is outside his remit that may have a bearing on the behaviour of officers and councillors?

If Cllr Heath is as hypocritical as Cllr Barker implies, then why does she want an inquiry? Surely, would her hypocrisy not be revealed in any such inquiry?

The public is tired of mud-slinging, Cllr Barker. We want to know why one officer can be fired for what seems to have been a verbal outburst of temper, reprehensible perhaps but hardly the crime of the century, while others are promoted, retire with honours, leave with brilliant references or simply remain untouched after presiding over a monumental blunder such as the "Blobby" fiasco. And two poor devils are "disciplined" after daring to take a shower when covered with filth after carrying out council duties.

With that final deplorable comparison, I will leave you to explain how the local Labour Party can ever again claim to be the party for the working class without risking being spat upon by that very same working class.

Aelfric

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.