I AM sorry that I appear to have misunderstood Cllr Abbott Bryning's view on the authority finances (Citizen letters: Sept 14). You see when Cllr Bryning said that the financial situation in the city wasn't too bad, I took it to mean that, the financial situation in the city wasn't too bad - foolish maybe, but an easy mistake to make and I'm sure he'll forgive my error. The Greens' suggestion that we sell off the family silver may be seen by Cllr Bryning as a political stunt but if nothing else it's worth discussing and it at least it might make, or at least save, the authority some money. It's not difficult to see why this is such a tough concept for the leader of the Labour group to get his head round, having spent so many years throwing your good money after bad on a number of well documented disasters. He obviously doesn't like some of my descriptions of councillors and I don't like having to use such descriptions, but they are justified. He says I should raise the tone and then I might (just might) be taken seriously. Who by Cllr Bryning, you? I'm not apologising for offending your sensitivity with my unworthy tone when it is you, and your wretched party, who has offended most of Lancaster and Morecambe with your consistent failure to put the town hall in order. I find it quite disturbing that the Independents are criticised by some because of the current financial situation and yet those very same people did nothing as Henig and his inner sanctum simply threw away public money at an unprecedented level. Did you or any of your colleagues ever ask or provide any reasonable answers to questions the public and some councillors have been asking for a long time? Because if you did - nobody heard them.

If councillors had been allowed to see the public objections to our accounts over Crinkley Bottom we might have been able to conduct our own inquiry into the shambles and save costs on the auditor's own investigations now running at £400,000. Were we allowed to see them? No. Were the reasons given for not being allowed access to them legitimate? No. Did you Abbott, get irate when you found this out or did you agree that we should keep this information restricted to just a select few? (and what a selection). What is there to hide councillor? Tell us why you don't want us to see what the public thinks of the way your party threw away their money.

Have we had a reasonable explanation as to why we paid around £75,000 to Civic Illuminations because we were asked to accept the unsubstantiated word of one officer who claims the council had a variation to an agreement on a contract - when we didn't

Have you demanded an explanation, have you made a polite inquiry? Do you care?

Did you agree with Mr Burrows leaving? Was it discussed within the Labour group? I agree that we are spending money on recruitment, which we could find other uses for at the moment, but if Mr Burrows had not been pushed out of the door we wouldn't have to would we? Did you question the money involved here or did you do what most of the Labour group tend to do and that is to hide cringingly behind the old Labour Party whip and say nothing?

I have not, do not and never will agree with everything the MBI try, say or do and no doubt there'll be times when I get it wrong. I can say that I will always be open about my intentions and that when it comes to spending other people's money, sitting there nodding my head without asking questions and getting answers, is not what I'm about.

Your concern with me raising the tone of my argument, just shows the public where your priorities lie: not in being held accountable with their money, not in an open party political system, not in getting rid of the whip, not in any soul-searching to address the problems of the past and not in any adult debate about real problems affecting real people in the district. No Abbott you're far more concerned with polite, parlour games of word fencing and political point scoring than things that really matter.

I didn't become a councillor for that and the sad thing is, I suspect that originally, neither did you.

Cllr Nick Westwell

MBI Harbour Ward