For once, I thoroughly agree with Jack Straw that the residents of Blackburn with Darwen ‘deserve better’.

Yes, they do deserve better from a government who took it upon themselves to come to an early decision that they would take away 25 per cent of our grit.

The council had up to three weeks of grit/salt in stock when the snow began. Prior to that we had successfully gritted the area from December 17.

The government then decided, outrageously in my view, to reduce our ordered allocation by 60 per cent of our grit. In other words, deny us the necessity to carry on gritting our area as we had previously done.

Therefore, radical decisions had to be quickly made.

Throughout the entire period of bad weather, Jack Straw never once contacted the council’s chief executive for an update on the situation or to see, as the local MP, if he could be of any help in such extreme circumstances.

Only now, when the snow has disappeared, does Jack emerge from the comforts of Oxford-shire (presumably well gritted) to try to demonstrate his concern.

Too late, I say. Action during the event is crucial, not criticism and blame afterwards.

An MP should know what is going on at the time and try to support the local council in times of crisis, not stay away and criticise after the event.

Yet he now, incredulously, has decided to blame Blackburn with Darwen Council for not gritting! Speak to your government colleagues, Jack, who took the allocation decision please.

This nanny state mantra is ‘do as I say, not as I do’ and our local MP, Jack Straw, has the temerity to blame us for his government playing God. That’s not an ‘anecdotal’ impression as he quotes, it’s fact. Get those facts right and you're left to consider why such draconian rationing was introduced by the mandarins of Westminster.

Born and bred in Blackburn, I cannot ever remember such terrible rationing of a necessity.

He calls for a gritting probe – and so do I. My probe, however, would be the reasoning behind the ‘national’ rationing outside our area.

MICHAEL LAW-RIDING, Councillor and prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate.