In the letters page of the NWN this week, Alan Law accuses Tony Vickers of bringing West Berkshire Council into disrepute by making multiple factual errors in his support of the Sandleford nimbies.
While I would very much like to see all town and district councillors held to account for their actions, I'm not altogether convinced that the letters page is the most appropriate forum for one councillor to accuse another of bringing the authority into disrepute. For one thing it doesn't provide Cllr Vickers with a satisfactory means of stating a detailed defence of what could very well be a legitimate interpretation and expression of opinion, for another it doesn't provide Cllr Laws with a privilege defence if Cllr Vickers were to prosecute the accusation as libel, and then finally a public display of the authority's dirty washing does nothing to my mind to enhance the reputation of the authority.
Having made his complaint in public I'm assuming that Cllr Law has already made a formal complaint to the Standards Committee, and if Cllr Vickers is found to have lied and so brought the authority into disrepute then he needs to resign, but I think the committee needs to consider the appropriateness of Cllr Law's public accusation too because this kind of squabbling erodes my confidence in the authoriy.