I ATTENDED the full meeting of Durham County Council on Wednesday and was saddened by the behaviour of some members.

I heard snipes and taunts. I witnessed unfairness (some over running speeches, others limited and put down), comments about disgraced MPs from a party which has had MPs convicted – but which party hasn’t?

Then I saw two members seemingly mouth a silent question “which do we vote for?”

responding to an amendment, unable to make a decision unilaterally in the best interests of their constituents rather than what their party wanted.

One member reminisced about his first time as a councillor when a clerk told him that the councillors get elected but the clerk is the one with the ideas.

He then said that nowadays council workers are even nicer and so make councillors’ jobs easier. So was Yes Minister, the TV comedy series in the 1980s, actually a docu-drama and I missed the point. Should it have been Yes Councillor?

When next in the ballet box, if you have a nice independent councillor standing, my advice is to support them, without a party to cow down to. They just may give you a second thought – hopefully.

Ian Dunnill, Crook