I’ve just read your article “Apology demand over ‘frivolous’ accusation” with a mixture of incredulity, disbelief and despair!

Whether the 79-year-old Cllr Alan Lay felt he was ‘threatened’ by Wisbech Mayor Cllr Gary Tibbs is not of earth shattering importance. Records are not kept of public attendance at council meetings, but I find it heard to believe that more than a handful of members of the public would have witnessed the alleged incident.

If, as Steve Tierney claims, the remark “risks bringing the council and the office of mayor into disrepute” I would argue that it is Cllr Tierney himself who should be held to account by FDC’s conduct committee. It his complaint, and the Wisbech Standard’s reporting of that complaint, which has brought the remark to a far wider audience than the “one man and his dog” which was the likely level of public audience at the meeting.

Cllr Tierney has before been accused of claiming exaggerated offence in a seeming attempt to make cheap political capital.

This tawdry engineered fuss ill becomes the deputy mayor, an ambitious politician who only recently was promoting himself as having the necessary qualities to be Cambridgeshire’s Police and crime commissioner !

CHRIS HOWES

Via email