A member of Parliament’s campaign manager has resigned from sitting on his local parish council after claiming that it spent hours holding “pointless” committees – including allegedly discussing what colour chairs to buy.

James Butcher, who works for Conservative MP for Hove and Portslade Mike Weatherley, said Sompting Parish Council was “worse than a children’s party”.

He described it as a “Vicar of Dibley” council and said there were occasions during meetings when he felt like he was havng “an out-of-body experience”.

In his resignation letter, published on his blog, Facebook page and Twitter account, Mr Butcher described the council as “unprofessional, ineffective and inefficient”.

He said that he and two fellow councillors were resigning, who he named as Cal- lum Buxton and Nicholas Piggott, because “it is our belief that Sompting Parish Council is an enormous waste of taxpayers’ money and an embarrassment to the people of Sompting”.

He added: “We resign our positions as we no longer want to be associated with this mockery and encourage the people of Sompting to take a closer look at what their money is actually being spent on.”

He also referred to “the ridiculous number of committees spending copious amounts of time discussing often nothing more than the colour of the chairs”.

Speaking to The Argus, Mr Butcher, 21, who is originally from Sompting but now lives in Lancing, said that he still had faith in local councils and sat on Lancing Parish Council, which he praised for its attitude.

But he admitted that he had lost faith in Sompting’s equivalent. Mr Butcher, who also sits on West Sussex Association of Local Councils and is standing for Adur District Council, said: “We have committees for everything.

“There was a committee about what colour chairs to buy. I think they chose pink or red. “It is really frustrating.

“I was sat there and I sort of felt like I was having an out-of-body experience.”

The Argus made a number of attempts to contact Sompting Parish Council, but received no response.