So Ken Bodfish (Letters, April 5) does not want the local elections to be influenced by the Government's involvement in Iraq.

Well, how about the fact that personal pensions we have been paying into all these years are now not worth anything like we were told they would be?

Or that our endowments will now not be enough to pay off our mortgages?

Or that the measly 2.5 per cent pay rise we had this year is now totally lost in the new council tax hikes and extra NI contributions?

While we are talking about the council tax, I could not help but notice the 39 per cent increase in favour of the police. This is, no doubt, to go towards the new mountain bikes to give them a bit of street cred as one of your readers suggested.

The council has not even begun to address the problem of new age travellers - which we have every year and costs us God knows how much - and its new traffic parking scheme appears to have been set up and run just as a money-making exercise.

It would have been nice if the money made out of this could have been used to offset the council tax rise.

It's a wonder anyone comes to Brighton at all. I will be delighted to see the back of Mr Bodfish and his Labour cronies who have, over the years, dragged this town down to the state it's in at the moment.

-J Grinstead, Brighton