HOW unedifying and disconcerting it was to see Councillor Sean Hornby pictured warmly welcoming Anne Marie Waters, candidate for the UKIP leadership and anti-Islamist.

Miss Waters seeks only to serve her own misguided and malicious political ends. More worrying, she is intelligent and has a knack for public speaking. Councillor Hornby has a publican’s eye for whom to serve next.

Like he, I think that Waters has half a chance of winning the UKIP leadership. Unlike Councillor Hornby I won’t be in line for any prizes if she succeeds. Instead I will be very concerned about the likely impact of a person whose sole political agenda is to embitter, demonise and ostracise so many of my friends, colleagues and neighbours.

Although professing to be a feminist, she wants to outlaw the right of women in Britain to wear that which they wish to wear in public.

I would have preferred it had the two kept their minor gathering private. Sharing it with the rest of us is a clear sign that Councillor Hornby is chancing it with Anne Marie Waters. I never had Sean down as a person who wants to provoke utterly unnecessary fear and division. Say what he likes, by publicly embracing Anne Marie Waters that is now his message.

Bolton can be proud of our good community relations. Getting along and letting everyone be is the Bolton way. Visitors to our town who irrationally declare Islam an “evil” (and by implication its adherents) are, in my opinion, unwelcome.

Councillor Darren Whitehead

Labour

Hulton Ward