JOHN Tanner’s recent letter reveals that he is only really concerned about flood prevention if it brings the Labour Party political advantage.

He carefully phrased his motion about the need for a flood conveyance channel such that it blamed the present Government for causing floods and advocated pushing the flooding further downstream as the only solution and then he opposed amendments that would have made it easier to get cross-party support. He turned an important debate into a playground game.

It reminds me of Jesus’ reported words in Luke 7:32: “What are you people like? What kind of people are you? You are like children sitting in the market and shouting to each other.

“We played the flute, but you would not dance! We sang a funeral song, but you would not cry!”

In fact his letter reveals that rather late in the day he’s come to agree with what the Green Party has been saying about this all along (witness my own letter, January 29).

His leader said he was hoping for a cross-party consensus so that our bid for government funding would be strong.

It would have been easy to achieve that, but he just can’t resist the temptation to score cheap points – so he managed to scupper even that.

A £120m conveyance channel may indeed be part of the solution but it’s not necessarily the most cost effective or quickest. And the city’s bid will be stronger still if the city council demonstrates its determination to play its own part in tackling flooding issues. That’s why we have included an extra £1.5m in our city budget for flood mitigation measures.

DICK WOLFF (Cllr Revd), City Councillor for St Mary’s, (Green Party)