Again the Green Party controlling Brighton and Hove City Council has succeeded in creating farce with news they have called in mediators to heal rifts in the party (The Argus, August 24).

If this scenario had been played out in a television comedy it would have been seen as far-fetched! To employ mediators to try to mend internal party divisions is ludicrous.

Unfortunately it is the residents of the city who are the victims of a political disaster. I am not a fan of peacetime coalition government.

But I believe now is the time for the Conservative, Labour and other parties on the council to form a temporary administration. Any of these parties’ ideological or controversial ideas would have to be set aside.

I am sure the groups who oppose the Greens could form an interim body to run the city until the local elections in 2015.

Richard J Szypulski, Lavender Street, Brighton

News that the Greens are calling in professional mediators to try to get their councillors talking to each other again must mark a new low point in the party’s fortunes.

Faced with nearly two-thirds of its budget being removed by the Conservative Government, the city council needs sound and sensible leadership that will focus on basic and immediate priorities, with streets kept clean and safe, vulnerable adults and children looked after, good schools secured, more decent homes, and the creation of jobs paying at least a living wage.

Even some of their own supporters now admit that the Greens are not up to the task.

In 88 weeks’ time, and in any local council by-elections between now and then, voters in Brighton and Hove will have the chance to vote for Labour and Cooperative councillors who will take up that challenge, or Conservative councillors who will hand most of those responsibilities over to profit-seeking private sector companies.

In the political vacuum left by the Greens, residents have two very different alternatives to choose from – one rooted in the best traditions of democratically controlled public service, one taking huge risks with the essential local services we all rely on.

Councillor Warren Morgan, Leader of the Labour and Cooperative Group, Brighton and Hove City Council