D Forester (Letters, February 18) is absolutely right. Not voting Labour in the local council elections would be a prime case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The Lib Dems and the Greens are unlikely to win more than eight or nine of the 54 seats between them on the new Brighton and Hove City Council. Any seats they take from Labour will put the Tories closer to winning control of the council through any gains they might make.

If progressive-minded voters let their hearts overrule their heads, in five years' time, whatever does or does not happen in Iraq will be long over but we will still be saddled with a Tory council taking its orders from Iain Duncan Smith or whichever right-winger takes over from him.

-Gavin Kennedy, Hova Villas, Hove