SIR, Jean Ewing and Tony Rothwell should have directed the reasonable anger of K Shoes workers at its proper target, Clarks International, rather than slighting Russell Armer and local artist Jo Casey, who combined to celebrate Kendal's heritage in a wholly creditable undertaking (Gazette, April 19).

It's a terrible thing to lose your job, and the accident of timing makes workers' reservations understandable, but it still isn't fair to tarnish a blameless, and almost entirely unconnected, project, organised long before the redundancies were announced.

Regrettably, the snubbing politicians haven't the excuse of being made redundant.

Readers might question their motives for not imitating the Mayor by honouring the engagement while deploring Clarks.

Certainly the only responsible parties, Clarks executives, won't be weeping into their briefcases; the only effect can be to discourage future local works of this kind.

I write as a friend of the sculptor, Miss Casey, whose name and photograph were unfairly splashed beneath your headline, perhaps as a result of opportunist political mischief-making; I dont know.

A future headline of 'No Controversy' above a photograph of a choice collection of Clarks executives and politicians in stocks being pelted with rotten tomatoes is one remedy.

P.

Fishman

Sedgwick

n SIR, The series of letters from several of our elected members prompted by Coun Martyn Jowett's sudden outburst the previous week (Letter, April 26, 'No faith in the system'), totally reinforces my belief that party politics should be kept out of local government.

Having read - and totally agreed with - reader David Armstrong's comments regarding our district and county councillors, including his well-made point about their apparent lack of interest in the views of their constituents (until just before election time, strangely), I then ploughed through the letters from councillors Jameson, Clarke and Studholme.

Allow me to paraphrase the above exchange.

"Please Sir, the Lib Dems and Tories have taken some of our money and given it to the Tories' friends in Carlisle and Eden."

"That's not true! Labour gave that money to their mates in the west and north of the county, but we got some of it back".

"We DID do something about the local roads - we did, we did, we did!" So there!

Well, if ever someone wished to clearly demonstrate that party politics is a complete turn-off to the general electorate, they couldn't have done it better than this! They appear as a mini version of the immature schoolchildren one sees and hears representing us in the House of Commons on a daily basis.

Is it any wonder we experience such low turnouts at local and national elections these days? If our elected members, of all political hues, would put as much energy into making our local environment a better place in which to live as they expend in criticising their political opponents, they would gain far more respect and enjoy far greater local support.

Keep party politics out of local government and let the merits of any proposals or actions be decided solely on the effect it has on the local area!

And one final point - Coun Studholme states that "... your readers will have noticed that potholes are now being filled and surfaces renewed."

Yes, John, I had noticed that, just in the past week or so.

Must be an election very soon, then?

Nigel Hunter

Kendal