DEAR EDITOR - Firstly may I point out how infuriating I found Mr Scurrell's patronising attitude, when I read his letter in the Advertiser/Messenger, under the heading - Why the tax is going up.

He says, and I quote: 'Despite attempts to get this message across it somehow seems not to have arrived'.

The arrogance of the man.

He obviously thinks we all have a lower intelligence than him, and have difficulty in grasping what is being told to us. Perhaps he can answer this question if he is so superior to us all.

Why is it, when challenged about expenditure, people like him always give out excuses that can never be verified.

Internet access to all information, air pollution monitoring ( the next reason for a new tax I've no doubt), safety checks on food businesses etc, etc. The excuses are endless.

If, for instance, the excuse was the cost of repairing the shoddy roads around Bromsgrove, and we could see better roads, or more police on the beat ( I know it's not the councils responsibility) and we could see more police, then we could see we were getting something for our money.

But sadly its not like that at all.

It's always things we have to take on trust when we ask what is being done with our money, and never the things that can be shown to have been done with it.

The government has the same problem.

If you keep a book on all of the supposed increase in expenditure that the government keeps promising here, there and every where, we would have the best country in the world around us.

But listen carefully - and its always things that we could never expect to be able to see face to face, up front and there before our eyes type of spending.

I put it to this gentleman that our money is being wasted by a council which has found that the people who pay their wages are willing to stump up once again.

I challenge him to say how much the average wage bill is in the council hierarchy and then see if the message doesn't seem to get across, as he so arrogantly puts it.

John Pardoe,

Bromsgrove.

(by e-mail).