MR Fisher's comments on the Keith Knaggs affair are gutter politics in the lowest form.

Firstly there is a vast difference between fiddling one's expenses over a number of years and resigning, when in an untenable position, compared an unfortunate remark by a councillor to an unnamed council employee.

Secondly, as Mr Fisher well knows, this affair is the subject of a gagging order and, unless a Ryedale LibDem councillor has grassed to him, he is not in possession of the full facts and therefore not qualified to pass judgement, any more than I am, particularly as Mr Knaggs is not in a position to defend himself.

Whilst on the subject of cost to the ratepayer, how about the fiasco in Pickering when a certain LibDem councillor, rode roughshod over the wishes and advice of the local ratepayers, at a meeting in the town hall, holding her own referendum in the process, to force through a ridiculous one-way-scheme in the Market Place. Apart from six months of chaos and misery how many tens of thousands of £s did that little exercise cost.

There is also the £9m frittered away on providing a grandiose sports complex that was of no use to York City Council. I am not aware of any councillor resigning over that gigantic fiasco but we the poor benighted ratepayers are still continuing to pay for it.

Double standards Mr Fisher? You do not know what the words mean.

Updated: 10:57 Thursday, December 13, 2001