I APPRECIATE you felt the need to be even handed in your front page editorial about the town council debacle but don't you think it was pushing things a little too far when you commented that "It is through no fault of their own that they haven't been able to test their vision at the ballot box"?

Well just whose fault is it then? Surely a body of people elected by such dubious procedures should have acted a little more modestly, a little less arrogantly and with a little more respect for democracy until their radical agenda had obtained a mandate from the Malvern electorate.

They have no one but themselves to blame for the anger they have aroused and their behaviour since the protests gathered momentum have been childish, peevish and petty. True democrats would have returned to the ballot box willingly before they instigated such justifiable public ire.

Let's hope that this horrible mess will teach our local politicians and administrators that local elections are important and should be brought to the public attention a little more energetically than has so far been the case. Not everybody in Malvern reads the Gazette.

JAY DRAPER, Avenue Road, Malvern.