JUST a few lines to clarify some things for the leader of the Labour group in Swindon.

Until Kevin Small can understand why his group continues shrinking under his leadership I'm afraid he is just going to go on making the same mistakes.

It is no use blaming his floundering colleagues, ludicrous though they certainly do seem at national level, for the kicking that Labour has taken locally.

I am sure I'm not just talking for myself when I say the years of mismanagement of Swindon by Labour will stick long in the memory the failed services and the inability by Small and his colleagues to understand that the public just couldn't go on accepting huge year-on-year council tax rises.

And the apparent lack of direction years of talk of a library being a prime example.

I can recall Mike Bawden coming to office and within a very short period of time a group he had set up finding, if memory serves, £2.5 million in an account that had been forgotten for 20 years.

I'll always remember Coun Small's comments on hearing that piece of news. "That just smacks of incompetence," he said.

Sadly he seemed to conveniently forget that it was his and his Labour predecessors' incompetence it was smacking of Could the saying it's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you a fool, than open it and confirm it' be more fairly used?

S BARCLAY Swindon