SO PETER Newton has suddenly discovered that Saddam Hussein is a vile and evil dictator (Letters, November 6), which is what many of us were saying approximately 15 years ago when he was responsible for chemical attacks and the massacres of the Kurdish population in Northern Iraq at a time when the UK and US governments were backing and arming Iraq in the Iraq versus Iran war.

I am not concerned what George Galloway is supposed or reported to have said in relation to the present war with Iraq, because whatever he said it was only words and words do not kill, maim, cause death and destruction or endanger the lives of British personnel and troops, it is actions and orders that are responsible.

It will be interesting to see how long Mr Newton's support for the conflict lasts when the British tax payer and British public are asked either to pick up the bill or accept cuts in services to pay for it.

Mr Newton once again gets on to his favourite hobbyhorse of attacking the so-called dictatorial executive of Blackburn with Darwen Council and the other two Labour Wensley Fold councillors, Mohammed Khan and Kate Hollern who serve on it.

Like myself the political allegiance of both of them is well known and advertised, we have stood for elections in the past and it has been up to the Wensley Fold electorate to hire or fire us. But it has become perfectly clear that Mr Newton also has a political agenda but is very shy of telling anybody what it is.

It really is about time that Mr Newton blew away the smokescreen, came out of the political shadows and made known his own political allegiance.

COUN DON RISHTON (Labour), Wensley Fold Ward, Blackburn with Darwen Council.