I WOULD like to thank all the people of Lawrence Ward who took the trouble to vote for me and vote Conservative at the District Council Elections. It really was good getting around to so many houses in Crediton and listening to people talk about their locality and the problems in Crediton. So many people expressed concerns about the loss of many local publically-funded facilities and if you add them all together it does seem that the people in Crediton have been treated unjustly. During the last seven years we, as a nation, have been trying to recover from a global economic crisis the like of which none of us have experienced before. The last Labour Government, although they disassociate themselves from that crisis, are now freely admitting, and saying that it is one of the main reasons they were not elected, that they spent far too heavily on public infrastructure and council spending, allowing our debts to build up too high. It is from this overspend that we are trying to recover from, and although there are political parties crying out for the end of austerity, the great British Public, voted for the Conservatives to continue as our elected government. One thing that struck me when I went round Crediton talking to people about how they might vote in the election was the reluctance of some voters to admit that they were voting Conservative. Instead of freely saying that they would vote blue they often said it apologetically fearing reprisals from those who did not agree with them. I felt that at the hustings in the district that I attended, people freely told me that they were out to get the Conservatives and great hostility was shown by members of other political parties towards the Conservative candidates. Although I was not successful in the Crediton District Election, I and other Conservative candidates and supporters have received vile anonymous aggressive letters from persons obviously unknown, threatening to come and get us. If this is done to warn us off from standing up for the things we believe in then these filthy letters will have totally the opposite effect. These matters are at present in the hands of the police. Finally on a slightly different note, I have been accused of making a speech, or as Charlie Werner the former Labour candidate for Sandford and Creedy called it a discourteous rant (Courier, May 15), at the Election count. I said and I quote that the Liberal Democrat candidates had carried out, "a very colourful and well organised campaign, based only very loosely on the facts", and I stand by that statement. Their election materials, with a map of Crediton, claimed that they as a party had achieved locally an enormous amount in the last four years including saving the Leisure Centre from closure. The fact of the matter is that, as Liberal Democrats, they have had and will continue to have little or no influence on the decisions that Mid Devon District Council will make, and they certainly did not save the Leisure Centre. They were so muddled, that the group of Liberal Democrats in the last administration split up, with Bob Wright leaving the group. Another member was banned from holding party membership and another, me, joining the Conservatives because there was a lack of cohesion, drive and they were totally without a plan. This is not sour grapes, but I do worry for Crediton, as it has elected four District Councillors who will have little influence on the council and therefore as I said in my, "discourteous rant", will have effectively cast Crediton into a political abyss. Martin Binks Sheraton House Kennerleigh