MR Hitchin s Nasty Party jibe in his letter last week (June 8) was misdirected. Serious skills shortages within Ely s Conservative Group preclude them from any hope of living up to this accolade. Their lamentable habit of consistently putting council

MR Hitchin's 'Nasty Party' jibe in his letter last week (June 8) was misdirected. Serious skills shortages within Ely's Conservative Group preclude them from any hope of living up to this accolade.

Their lamentable habit of consistently putting council duties before the important work of press and public relations and their old-fashioned belief that rational debate is more democratic than political rhetoric, puts the Tories embarrassingly low down the 'nasty' league tables in Ely.

The high scorers here are indisputably, the Liberal Democrats - truly shining examples to us all of how to win power and influence without actually doing anything useful at all. In fact, in many cases, they also manage to do very real damage - witness their brilliantly engineered 'save The Grange' campaign last year which lost Ely so much.

Consequently, the town now has no coherent plan to cope with its rapid expansion and the 300-space park-and-ride facility, along with business park, 1000 new jobs and much, much more are but distant memories.

But still the Conservative group insists on worrying about these issues when clearly there is a much easier way to win elections.

Mr Hitchin was upset that I had assumed his wife knew that her photograph would be used to spread misinformation about the proposed extension to Broad St car park.

Surely he should be more concerned that it has been exploited in this way without her knowledge? If he doesn't understand how, he might find it illuminating to attend one of the many Lib Dem training seminars on the dark arts of political hype and media manipulation.

In the meantime, perhaps he could explain to me what is 'green' about forcing people to drive further than they might otherwise choose and depriving our highly taxed shopkeepers of their custom because of ever increasing parking problems in Ely? If he would like to discuss this and any other environmental issues, I'm easy to find - the Lib Dems have indicated to me privately that they know where I live.

JACKIE PETTS

Prickwillow

By email

Editor's Note:

To suggest that the photograph (taken by an Ely Standard photographer) was used to 'spread misinformation' could imply a level of collusion on the part of this newspaper. I would like to take this opportunity to make our position clear. We took a photograph of Mrs Hitchin and her children to illustrate the story, with the cathedral as a backdrop. The position of the Hitchin family was a matter for the photograher on the day and dictated by the position of the sun! This newspaper would never be party to (inadvertently or otherwise) any attempt by a political party to spread misinformation.