"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when at first we do deceive." Like myself, some older readers of The Argus will still remember the days when the Evening Argus (some 77 times cheaper than today) was nicknamed the "Penny Liar".

What jogged my memory was when I read in the paper recently the reasons given by Jackie Lythell, finance councillor and deputy leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, for why big rises in council taxes are "necessary" again this year and then, later, what council leader Ken Bodfish said in a report about where and on what some of our big "necessary" increases in council tax last year had been spent on.

-Denis Goatcher, Stonery Road, Portslade