Political bias on show

I WAS disconcerted to read in the Gazette (April 25) what appeared to be little more than a party political broadcast on behalf of the Liberal Democratic party delivered by Whispering Smith in his column.

During an election period, any weight given to a particular party needs to be counterbalanced by equal time given to the other main parties.

Whispering Smith described Dr James Walsh as “standing shoulder to shoulder with the masses” and making himself highly visible on local issues, especially where leisure facilities are involved.

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As someone involved in the campaign to save our local Crown Post Office, I must say I have not found Dr Walsh highly visible and in fact this campaign is being spearheaded by the Labour party.

It is the Labour party, too, who have – together with Dr Walsh and people from other parties – been actively involved in campaigns to save the Windmill and our other leisure facilities. It is in fact Labour councillor Mike Northeast who is taking a lead in negotiations with the Picturedrome at Bognor Regis to enable us in Littlehampton to have a cinema.

But Whispering Smith does not seem to have noticed this!

Can the local paper please be less partisan in these matters?

Mary Mears

Oakcroft Gardens

Littlehampton

Editor’s note: we try very hard to be non-partisan in our news coverage and while we apply similar values throughout the newspaper, the views of columnists are their own, although we would not allow anyone to come out directly in support of a political party. I don’t think that was the case with Whispering Smith last week.

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We give coverage to any and all parties campaigning on local issues and I don’t think anyone could fail to realise that the Labour party was the driving force behind keeping the Crown Post Office in The Arcade if they had read the three stories devoted to this.