Madam,

The letter by Cllr Owain Williams, Clynnog Ward, leader of Llais Gwynedd (‘It’s not councillor’s fault she was unopposed’) is entirely answered by my letter that you kindly published on the same day.

I had to withdraw from the election because of ill-health, as I said. How can that be unfair of me? I had hoped against hope I would be fit enough to stand.

My standing down wouldn’t have prevented Plaid Cymru, the Greens, the Lib Dems, the Tories, and Llais Gwynedd (which Mrs Hughes, I understand, defected from some years ago) from standing against her.

It is simply true, as I said, that elected representatives have to be careful supporting ideas which have not been the subject of either their manifesto or of electoral debate in the ward or constituency in which they stand.

In such cases, officers surely speak in a personal capacity and should not use the details of their office, as Mrs Hughes did, in signing off. Otherwise what they say sounds ex cathedra.

To say that it is ‘nerve’ and ‘audacity’ on my part to say that Gwynedd councillors should not use their office to promote ideas and notions, which have always been part of political discourse but for which they have no mandate whatsoever, whether they were opposed or unopposed, smacks of a dictatorial attitude.

It is as if Owain Williams thinks he has the right to pronounce on any matter whatsoever, as the voice, as he signed himself, of Clynnog Ward and of Llais Gwynedd.

People in powerful positions, in councillorships, in the leadership of a party, should be more careful how they throw their weight around, by invoking the authority of their official positions, as Cllrs Hughes and Williams have, in support of what are surely matters of personal opinion.

It feels to me to be close to a misuse of office, without his checking the facts, for Williams, with all his offices and powers fully named, i.e councillor and leader, to say that some ‘people might say that it was a very selfish decision on his part to pull out at such short notice’ without really knowing whether such people exist at all.

They, I am sure, would not, anyway, see falling ill as an act of selfishness on my part.

I note that not one word has been heard from either of them, in any capacity, right or wrong, trying to defend letting 16-year-olds lock themselves into a war machine.

Yours etc,

Ian MacIntyre, Shelbourne Court, Barmouth.

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