It is difficult to know which is more outrageous. The fact that Brighton and Hove City Council chief executive David Panter, who has just received a massive pay increase of £25,000 (21 per cent), has spent thousands of pounds of council money wining and dining various cronies or the attitude of Green councillor Keith Taylor that it is up to the councillors themselves to decide whether or not this is reasonable.

People voted for the Green Party in the last elections because they thought they offered a radical alternative to New Labour and the Tories. How wrong they were.

None of us expected them to be assimilated into the local Establishment quite so quickly.

There is no discernible benefit to wining and dining people who are already more than capable of paying for themselves.

If Mr Panter wishes to entertain so lavishly, it should come out of his own vast salary.

-Tony Greenstein, Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre, Crestway Parade, Brighton