CONGRATULATIONS to Kevin Walsh on becoming the Lib Dem spin doctor in Bolton.

His letter of May 9 would have us believe that the Lib Dems' fourth place performance in Bolton was some kind of resounding success. Its success at winning one seat out of 20 and attaining 11% of the total vote is in reality yet another rejection by Bolton people. Like the Tories across the North of England, the Lib Dems will take a lot longer than a few years to win back trust from people.

He implies that following the elections, Labour no longer has a mandate in Bolton. There are two possible ways of looking at this — out of the total number of seats up for grabs, how many did Labour win? The answer – 12 out of 20. Which party had the greatest share of the vote across the whole Borough? The answer – Labour on 41%, which is actually a 2% increase on our share of the vote that we had in the 2015 elections. The party closest was the Tories on 25.5%, then UKIP on 19%. So, on both counts, local Labour policies were clearly preferable and the mandate to deliver was given across the borough.

The purpose of this letter is not just to correct Mr Walsh’s misleading and incorrect statistics, but to also point out the obvious. Every time you try to ram down people’s throats how bad this council is, you insult that 40% of the electorate who simply do not agree with you. I understand, and this applies to UKIP more than the lib Dems, your confusion as Labour is time and again returned to office in Bolton. I will try to help you understand – those 29,000 people did not agree with your statements about Labour, and are becoming sick and tired of the constant knocking of our town. That is why they backed Labour.

The net loss of two Labour seats is not something we see as irrelevant, but is something that we take extremely seriously. I accept that there are some areas that people are concerned about and some areas that we, as the party running the council, need to do much better on. Even though we have a mandate, we have a lot of work to do to ensure we gain the trust and support of a greater number of Bolton people. But the results do speak for themselves; it is local Labour that the people have again turned to, to steer this borough toward the future.

Cllr Nick Peel

Bolton Labour Party