SIR - With elections due shortly are we to be voting for councils or cancers? How many of the current councillors are worthy of our votes? Very few, if you look at the facts:

1. They 'gag' the opposite point of view as they did regarding the sale of our housing stock. 2. Waste a reported £600,000 of tax payers' money on the project but do not give details of where our money went. 3. 3. Throw 'mud' at various people when the brow-beating of the tenants failed. They did not have the guts to admit it was they who got it wrong. 4. The chief executive of Stroud District Council was given a massive 27 per cent increase. 5. 6. Up and down the UK reports show thousands of working people to be losing their jobs except council staff (who live off the backs of the tax payer). 7. 6. Councils are growing like uncontrollable cancers. Gloucester, for example, have increased their staff by 1,000 this year (from 7,000 up to 8,000).

8. The police had a gigantic increase of 51 per cent last year and another ten per cent this year and yet are unable to do the jobs we (the tax payers) think they should do. Then councils employ wardens/rangers to do the police work! 9. Councillors (regardless of party) we elect to act as chemotherapy are either unable or unwilling to stop the growth of this vile disease. What a sorry state voters are in - no win!

If you vote, the above facts show you have very few worthwhile candidates to support and if you do not vote you have only yourself to blame for what you get! Why are our forces in Iraq when there is a major war to be fought at home?

M Fox, Beyon Drive, Cam