I DID not know whether to laugh or cry at the latest 'campaign' launched by Anne Snelgrove. She castigates the local council for spending £1.5million on what she describes as spin. Perhaps Ms Snelgrove will confirm the amounts spent on advertising and spin by central Government. I suspect she agrees with the £75 million advertising campaign to persuade some people that they need to exercise and eat less if they want to lose weight and be healthier, or the multi million pounds spent on advertising which tells smokers that smoking is a bad thing - as if they didn't know.

Equally I'm sure she is happy that expensive advertisements are being placed in the national press telling pensioners that they are getting money which was announced in the Chancellor’s pre-Budget announcement. The fact that pensioners have to do nothing to get the money appears to be immaterial to the desire to make the announcement. I am sure many of your readers would rather Anne Snelgrove busied herself in Parliament forcing the Government to reduce departmental advertising budgets, cut out wasteful costs in receptions and eliminate the incredible cost of officials using taxis.

I support the call for the local council to reduce costs but I think Anne Snelgrove is simply being typically opportunistic and politically mischievous in setting up her campaign. DES MORGAN Caraway Drive Swindon