AGAIN, Ivan Cooper jumps on yet another bandwagon only this time to side with a Liberal Democrat (must be a first!)

When a survey is delivered to 20,000 households across Bolton West including Blackrod, Horwich, Westhoughton, Smithills, Hulton Park and Deane-Cum-Heaton I find it laughable that Mr Cooper and Mrs Halliwell are trying to say that this is nothing more than a by-election stunt for an area comprising of only 1700 people.

Surely it would have made sense to only deliver surveys to people in Wingates and thus save a lot of time and money?

Again the infamous Mr Cooper seems to be talking out of his hat.

I think that his and Mrs Halliwell's comments are more to do with the fact that neither of their parties are willing to listen to what the public are saying except at election time.

In Mr Cooper's case the Tories had 18 years to listen to the people of Bolton yet I bet in all that time they never once circulated a survey asking for the public's opinion. If they had I am sure we would never have had to endure the horrendous Poll Tax.

M Schmid, Westhoughton, Bolton.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.