Submission of an “open” letter from senior managers at South Hams District Council last week, represents a new low in the downward spiral at Follaton House.

It is the long-established practice and rule in our democracy that government employees do not seek to influence public debate on matters in which they are professionally involved. In the United Kingdom, unlike North Korea, China or Russia, decisions are made by freely-elected politicians in the best interests of their constituents and are implemented by publicly apolitical employees.

Of itself, the public intervention of SHDC managers in the highly controversial and deeply unpopular proposal to merge the South Hams and West Devon district councils is a major breach of the important “non-interference” principle.

However it is also further, compelling evidence that South Hams Council is in thrall to a council chairman, whose contemptuous dismissal of the views of his constituents is matched only by his unquestioning acceptance of the views propounded by the council’s professional advisers.

How else to explain the preposterous notion of putting council tax-payers into debt by borrowing millions of pounds in the naive hope of getting a financial return by “investing” in commercial property. Or the council merger justification, which plays to council managers’ dreams of an easier life with a promise of, “…fewer council and committee meetings and…no need for each council to make separate decisions”.

It can perhaps be attributed to the council’s unbridled arrogance that the website does not shrink from the fact that as a result of this huge loss of democracy, South Hams residents would be faced with a 41 per cent increase in the tax paid to their district council. On this logic, we in Britain should be considering not Brexit, but an immediate shut-down at Westminster and a complete transfer of all UK law-making and government administration to Brussels… all accompanied by a swingeing increase in income tax.

Derek Weaving

Chillington

Kingsbridge