Feast of opinions on allowances

YOUR letters page on August 16 was certainly a feast of opinions regarding your headline story on councillor allowances and expenses.

While Ann Pithers feels that we should simply sweep the fact that they cost the city £1 million a year under the carpet for fear of damaging the City of Culture bid, Malc Graham lambasts my response to the story as a “crude attempt to shift the blame” – himself shifting the blame to bankers and the Tories.

Mr Graham has clearly misunderstood my point that, regardless of who is to blame for austerity, it is unacceptable that Coventry’s Labour councillors blame austerity for every single cut they make to basic local services – while showing no restraint whatsoever in the money they and their council colleagues are costing the city each year.

It hardly gives the impression that we are all in this together, does it?

Furthermore, the Tory austerity programme was initially imperative after they took office only to find “there is no money”, as the odious Labour former Chief Secretary to the Treasury so eloquently noted.

But finally a voice of reason in the form of Terry Prewett’s letter, in which he reiterated his call for fewer councillors and questioned inflated expenses claims.

By cutting councillor numbers from three to two per ward not only would we automatically save the city thousands, but we might also reduce the number of elected hypocrites in our city. Anybody else fancy lobbying for that?