Sir - At a time when all families in Oxford are feeling the pinch due to the soaring cost of living under Labour, council tax bills for hard-working families and pensioners across the city risk soaring in the future if Ministers let trade unions leaders have their way, and raid council reserves to pay for an inflation-busting pay increase for town hall workers in response to this weeks strike.

Everyone is tightening their belts, and everyone can understand the financial pressures faced by town hall workers like the rest of us, but this week's planned two-day local government strike by UNISON and Unite is not the answer.

It risks leading to a summer of discontent through a sustained and escalating' programme of strike action.

A strike by town hall workers leaves Oxford families, for example, facing the prospect of rubbish pilling up outside their homes in the humid weather, a prospect heightened by this coming on top of fortnightly rubbish collections.

Some union leaders have demanded that the Government intervene and pay off the striking workers by raiding councils' funds.

However, it is the interest from such investments that generates a revenue stream for councils which is used to keep council tax down.

Without the revenue from these investments and savings, the risk is that council tax bills would have to rise or local services would be cut.

I hope that Andrew Smith will unequivocally distance himself from the action of the strikers, and side instead with the interests of all Oxford's hard-pressed families?

Ed Argar, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Oxford East