SIR — I witnessed a new demonstration of “democracy in action” at the full council meeting of Taunton Deane Council on Tuesday, as demonstrated by its leader, Conservative Cllr John Williams.

As your readers know, it has been agreed that West Somerset Council can have an extra six weeks or so (until September 6) to make up its mind on the proposed merger with Taunton Deane.

There were many pleas for Cllr Williams to postpone the Taunton Deane decision till more or less the same time, to allow, inter alia, the two councils further time to talk to each other.

The hope would be that they could reach some agreement both on the principle of the merger and whether to agree to the proposed so-called High Level Business Plan Transformation in whole or in part.

Despite persuasive arguments to delay the decision until September, Cllr Williams used his sizeable Conservative majority to push through a somewhat different scenario to that discussed at the previous scrutiny meetings.

There was only one “option” to vote on – that was to go for a complete merger - and if that was not agreed that both councils should go it on their own.

That would mean getting rid of the joint working system between the two councils, currently running rather well.

At the meeting, Liberal Democrat and other councillors argued that deciding before September might put undue pressure on West Somerset to comply with this revised proposal, because the council is in such bad financial straits.

Before the meeting, I had thought surely no one, no matter how politically ambitious, would act in such a way.

But having watched the manipulation of the meeting and the refusal to answer any questions about why the Taunton Deane council should not wait until September 6 to have this vote, I could only conclude that if I were West Somerset I would be extremely wary of going into an alliance with a council which showed you so little respect.

Sue Levinge,

Chipstable.