ONE begins to understand Mrs Mann's frustration with her celebrated columnist husband, if this week's column is typical.

Most of what he says is only too true, but why make these comments after the elections, rather than before, when his words might conceivably have improved the voter's selection of this generation of councillors?

And again why not come up with some positive solutions to improve the matter (apart from that panacea of having unitary authorities)? Let's see if we can help Mrs Mann's temper.

Do we expect to get quality management of our local government affairs, when the prime qualification of most party candidates is their unswerving loyalty to their party, rather than any management capability of evaluating and deciding between complex alternatives, or even an ability to think things through to our long-term benefit rather than produce a short term expedient solution?

As to unitary authorities, has it occurred to those in power that many of them will/ought to be out of a job, should this happen?

For example, there are only 18 county councillors covering Wycombe district. The county spends 85 per cent of your council tax proceeds. Wycombe District Council spends but 15 per cent, but needs 60 councillors. That is three and a half times as many, to deal with their 15 per cent.

QED, a unitary council for Wycombe District offers considerable council tax savings to all of us, starting with, say, 21 councillors rather than 78, (60 + 18), as now.

Our task would then be to select 21 highly-capable councillors (never mind the politics), instead of just voting red, blue or yellow without even bothering to establish the individual credentials, abilities, or competence of the candidate.

Who knows, they might even introduce reasonably priced parking charges in Marlow!

David Coe

Frieth Road

Marlow