I AGREE with most of Anthony Barraclough’s letter (‘Sign of Contempt,’February 29), but I would like to correct one of his assertions, namely that the Conservative “petition against the Independent-led town council imposing a tax increase” was successful.

St Ives Town Council, which has an independent majority, formally ratified a zero per cent Council Tax increase on February 8 following a decision already taken to this effect at the council meeting on December 14, 2011.

Council minutes show that no petition was ever presented to St Ives Town Council, either as an agenda item or during public participation. St Ives Town Council had no knowledge of this petition, or of how many or who signed it. Therefore it had no bearing whatsoever on the corporate decision by the council not to increase Council Tax.

No – having realised that a zero per cent increase was on the cards for St Ives, this mock petition was devised solely to create an illusion of ‘action’ by the four Tory town councillors, two of whom, as district councillors, were already planning a 3.5 per cent increase at the district council. Do they think really we have all fallen off a Christmas tree?

The local Conservatives are indeed contemptuous, not only of national Conservative policies, which do not suit them, but of the local voters, whom they treat as idiots, and especially those who signed a petition that never saw the light of day. To me that is true contempt.

JANICE DOBSON

Rookery Close

St Ives