If Keith Jago (Letters, October 8) thinks the Yes campaign has been responsible for all the "negative mud-sliging", he must have been reading the wrong leaflets.

The Yes campaign has been resolutely positive. We argue simply that a Yes vote means all the people of Brighton and Hove get to choose a city leader.

That way, we get to elect not only councillors but also the mayor. That's 200,000 of us having our say, not just a handful of councillors.

The Yes campaign says the leader of this city should be accountable to the people of this city. Show me the mud-slinging there.

We have cited Ken Livingstone as an example of a city leader who is fighting against the Government for the interests of Londoners in relation to the tube. Again, a positive example.

We are not arguing for "a Utopia", merely the right to elect our city leader and have him or her accountable to the people and not to politicians.

The No campaign leaflet is where you'll see negative mudslinging - as James Taylor, whom I do not know, pointed out in his letter. Against all the odds, we in the Yes camp have remained positive in favour of democracy.

We have neither needed nor wanted to descend to what the former No campaigner Paul Elgood has rightly called "gutter politics".

-Simon Fanshawe, Brighton