IT HAS become apparent within the recent article headlined 'Council committed to town - not 'the rape of Weston' (February 11) that North Somerset Council.s leader, Nigel Ashton, is upset with the lack of national coverage he and his council are creating

IT HAS become apparent within the recent article headlined 'Council committed to town - not 'the rape of Weston'' (February 11) that North Somerset Council's leader, Nigel Ashton, is upset with the lack of national coverage he and his council are creating when he dismissed the Weston Mercury for being a '...small local paper [with a] political bias'.

Commentating that he expected such treatment from The Telegraph and Guardian newspapers instead appears to illustrate that he would rather spend his time writing letters of argument to, or even better have an interview with these national bigwigs rather than spend time having to weekly patronise a small rural newspaper, and their readers, who quite honestly should know better.

Obviously it must be difficult for Cllr Ashton to get a word in edgeways as his colleague Cllr Elfan Ap Rees is always dominating the papers or being interviewed on television for one thing or another, leaving little for Cllr Ashton to do but moan that this silly 'small local paper' is not toeing the official council line.

Naturally Cllr Ashton is able to speak to his people once a month through that fantastic piece of non-political bias medium known as North Somerset Life magazine, a publication that even Josef Stalin would have been proud of had he had even an ounce of experience to lead such a dynasty as North Somerset Council that Cllr Ashton apparently does.

With a loyal 'readership' of 91,000 compared to the Mercury's paltry 47,000, maybe there lies (excuse the pun) the answer to Cllr Ashton's problems; publish North Somerset Life magazine on a weekly basis (I'm sure funding will not be hard to find) allowing the faithful followers to read about the amazing decisions made by, to paraphrase Cllr Bryant's car sticker, "********" who know better than their electorate, without the childish interruptions of Mercury journalists questioning such decision making.

So I await the council's version of The Night of the Long Knives which will inevitably lead to the Mercury's editor and reporters being sent to a gulag somewhere in Clevedon's wasteland, and welcome Cllr Ashton's and his colleagues' comments and decision-making, free from any political-bias journalism, through the council's own 'independent' publication.

MARC REVAN

Knightcott Road

Banwell