It was useful to have The Argus's round-up of candidates and wards for the forthcoming elections but it reinforced my sense that most local politicians are not acting as if they want to run a city of a quarter of a million people.

When candidates advance as their main claim to our support that they will "clean up the graffiti", you know something is seriously wrong.

There are big issues facing the city.

Many candidates act as if they are far too big for them. The consequence is the city ends up being run by its paid administrators.

It ought to be unproblematic that the streets are kept clean and rubbish collected - but it isn't.

The city is choked with bungled traffic management schemes which go unmodified though the ill-effects are clear for all to see.

There is a statutory responsibility for child protection which is left to the professionals with sometimes terrible consequences.

How many candidates think child protection is an issue? None of them, I suspect. But it is actually one of their responsibilities.

There are issues about housing and the local economy which ought to be of concern to all candidates.

But most seem to think their job is just to "get the council to do something" for their own patch - a bit of rubbish collection here, a new light bulb there.

To me, that shows both the extent to which council administrators are failing to deliver basic, uncontroversial services and the inability or unwillingness of councillors to bring them under proper and popular democratic control.

The job of elected politicians is to think big and kick ass. I now have to work out which of my own local candidates might do this.

-Trevor Pateman, Hove