I am really pleased the election period is upon us because it exposes the fools and the rogues - and first out of the traps are the Lib Dems.

Mark Barnard, once a Tory councillor, now a Lib Dem, gets this week's brain-dead award for his extraordinary view that we can sustain our local jobs and businesses without trying to attract new trade.

For hundreds of years, ours has been a tourist town. So many of our jobs and businesses are based on tourism and conferences.

Without that influx of money, we would go the way of so many other failed English resorts whose fortunes faded with the rise of cheap flights abroad.

Brighton and Hove City Council's total budget is about £250 million. Most of it goes to our schools.

If a few thousand pounds are spent attracting tourists and conferences that is money well spent. Anyone but a fool can see that.

-Garry Mildenhall, Kings Road, Brighton